King Stopharia in sheet mulch / compost?

I’m sheet mulching to replace a bit of lawn with something productive. Given it’s neighborhood visibility, my sheet mulch isn’t layers of straw, manure, etc... but rather ten inches of well decomposed compost over a couple layers of cardboard. The compost is largely wood based.

I’m seeding this with white clover and initially planting various things - pumpkins, squash, melons, comfrey, possibly daikon, and various berries.

Question: Is is appropriate to innoculate the sheet mulch compost with king stopharia? Or, does it need raw wood chips that aren’t already composted?

This is less about producing the mushrooms to eat (though that would be nice) than about putting lots of good living things into the newly established area to help it blossom with productivity and maybe even look good enough to infect a few neighbors with the idea of productive lawn alternatives.

The compost should work. Water and shade will help. You will just have a shorter life span as the wood chips would take longer to decompose. You might even try brown oyster mushrooms, yummy!

Dennis Mitchell wrote:The compost should work. Water and shade will help. You will just have a shorter life span as the wood chips would take longer to decompose.

I'm glad the subject of King Stropharia came up. I was very disappointed with mine. I got an indoor kit from Fungi Perfecti that never fruited, so I dumped it outside in some aging chips in a shaded flowerbed and I had ONE come up. After that, nothing, and it's been two years. A friend of mine (we both live in the humid Zone 8a, me in Athens, she in Roswell, Georgia), and she said she'd tried four different times to grow KS and had zero success. She's got chanterelles out the kazoo, though. Is this just a bad area for KS?

King Stroph like lower air humidity than we have in the South. While that lower humidity means you might have to water, the mycelium want to be able to breathe easily and The southern humidity levels keep their growing medium just a bit to wet for that.

Just about any other really good edible will grow in the humid south, oysters, winecaps, rishi, Lions mane, chanterelles, etc. all do great, the only fussy one I've found is the king stroph.

Bryant RedHawk wrote:King Stroph like lower air humidity than we have in the South. While that lower humidity means you might have to water, the mycelium want to be able to breathe easily and The southern humidity levels keep their growing medium just a bit to wet for that.

Just about any other really good edible will grow in the humid south, oysters, winecaps, rishi, Lions mane, chanterelles, etc. all do great, the only fussy one I've found is the king stroph.

Well I'm very glad to know it wasn't something I was doing wrong! Oysters will be my next adventure!