Erin Hamilton

A friend just brought me some nice ones he found recently in Appalachians. I've always used chaga as a destress/calming supplement, it doesn't make you sleepy or 'out of it', more of a decompressed/breath of fresh air/calms the static kind of feeling. I usually combine it with lions mane and reishi (all ground up) and simmer it in water at a low temp on the stove with a bit of cardamom, coconut cream and some honey or maple syrup. I'll add cordyceps mushrooms too if I need a big energy boost. (simmering them in the hot water helps extract it so that more of the beneficial stuff is bioavailable - you can do much longer more involved extraction processes that extract a lot more, but this works well for a convenient cozy drink with a lot of feel-good power) You don't have to strain it out, just pour it in a mug and voila!

Maieshe Ljin wrote:I am trying king oysters (and mushroom cultivation in general) the first time this year. I sprinkled some grain spawn in layers in a milkjug planter along with plant material, soil, and a little mashed sensitive fern root (a failed attempt to extract starch) in a manner that would horrify any true mushroom grower, and put the cut-off top back on the jug to hold in moisture. The inspiration is their natural habitat growing on the roots of trees. We shall see how it goes.

I am also trying with pasteurized sawdust and possibly unpasteurized if it works out (Peter McCoy in Radical Mycology mentions oysters as being mushrooms that tolerate that treatment but other sources say that king oyster is picky.

This is so interesting... I'm a mushroom grower/teach mushroom growing (and am totally unhorrified at your approach, haha) I'm curious about the effect of the sensitive fern root on growth rates and am totally going to tinker with that, I wonder how it would hold up in a pressure cooker adding juice or puree from it to a culture or agar. You might be onto something.

If growth slows down at all, you might want to try using strips of paper bandage tape to cover the top hole on the milk jug instead of the cut off part of the top, or you could tape a coffee filter on there. Kings like to grow out of the top of the container, so a little extra airflow up there helps them know which way to grow.

Looking forward to seeing how they turn out:)

Erin