Recent mushroom growing results

I started eight buckets of blue oysters on straw the day after Thanksgiving. They started pinning the first of February.  So far I’ve harvested over seven pounds of mushrooms and will have more to pick in two or three days and beyond that.  I expect my yields would have been higher with much more frequent spraying. The low humidity cause some pins to dry up and not mature into mushrooms.

Started eight grow bags of chestnut mushrooms on masters mix (pound of hardwood sawdust, pound of ground soy hulls and three pounds of water per bag.  Disposed of one bag because of infection. The other seven produced a heavy first flush.  I’m waiting on a second flush.

I’m currently cooking grow bags now, two at a time in the pressure cooker. Will do a total of eight bags, all masters mix.  These I’ll inoculate with lions mane spawn tomorrow.

Nice job Kevin!  I like the look of your setup.  I might try something similar myself.

Eric

Eric,
The amazing thing about it is that when the oysters are finished fruiting, and the mycelium has colonized all the straw, that straw may be used in place of spawn for the next set of buckets. One colonized bucket would be enough to start three or four new buckets.

This is the absolute easiest way I’ve found to grow oysters.

Did you sterilize your straw or just soak it!

Just soak it

Kevin, I know that you are planning on using the leftover substrate to start new batches of mushrooms, but have you thought about adding some to your garden?  It is some magically fertile stuff there and the fungi might just keep growing for a while.  I do this all the time with Wine Caps.  Just a thought.

Eric

It is some magically fertile stuff there and the fungi might just keep growing for a while.

Eric, I was thinking the same thing!

Kevin, those a some of the most beautiful mushrooms I have ever seen and you make it look so easy to grow.

What a great idea thanks for sharing.

Beautifully done! And those Chestnuts look delicious.

I'm growing Oysters in buckets (1gallon) too but working at a tiny commercial scale with full climate control set up....not exactly permie style. Also a few Lions Mane and just got some King Oyster started. At the moment I'm using hardwood pellets as my substrate. I wondered if you chopped the straw first like when bagging it? I'm not sure if it's as necessary when using buckets since the straw can't rip them?  Also, did you sterilize or pasteurize for the buckets? I've had success with straw in a few buckets, lime water soaked BUT chopping it is very time consuming and messy. Since it's mid winter here I can't do much outside at the moment.

Thanks everyone!  I’m very into mushrooms.  I hunt them spring through fall, although I found my last wild oyster on New Years Day this year.

Eric,
I have wine caps growing in the garden already.  The beetles really get bad on the oysters growing outside here, but I don’t have as much problem with buckets if they’re in the garage in the summer.

I don’t treat the straw in any way other than soaking it, and I’ve rarely had a problem.  I also don’t chop my straw because I’m using oat straw, which is shorter and already has smaller broken pieces mixed in. I’d probably chop wheat straw if that’s what I were using, but I’d try a bucket or two not chopped to see if that works, I’m wondering if the colonization time would be longer.

The straw I pick up from a somewhat local farm by the pickup truck load, about 20 bales at a time, but we also use it for horse bedding.

The hardwood sawdust I use in the bags is leftover from someone sawing oak firewood.  A friend rakes it up after they are finished and gives it to me.  I’ve got 20 boxes of it sitting in the garage. That should last me awhile, after which I’ll go to hardwood pellets. I think soaking the pellets would be the way to go.

The chestnut mushrooms have fruited very well for me every time I’ve grown them. They taste great and will take longer cook times in dishes like stew, and still retain their texture, which is somewhat crunchy.

This will be my second time growing lions mane. The first time they produced well, but I wasn’t giving them enough fresh air, so instead of growing the downward pointing teeth, like they should, they grew upward in a branching structure.  Still tasted great (somewhat like crab).  I was on the phone with NorthSpore a couple times until we figured that out. I have since talked to a couple people who had the same problem.

Lions Mane is different from oysters and chestnuts in that you can’t spray them directly and need some kind of a fruiting chamber for them.  I used a shotgun fruiting chamber for them last year. This year I have a grow tent set up with a humidifier and fan to bring in fresh air.  It should to well with Lions Mane, it has improved my chestnut yields.

Awesome! I never thought looking at those blue Lowe's buckets could make my mouth water

I've watched some videos and attended a demonstration, so I feel like I'm ready to try growing my own. That said, I'm always on the look out for more resources. Any tips, tricks, videos, suppliers, etc. you suggest?

Ryan, if you are interested in Wine Caps I have a series about them.

I have a long running thread about my experience with them HERE:

https://permies.com/t/82798/composting/composting-wood-chips-chicken-litter.

Also, the first post contains a link to some other important fungi resources.

Eric

The best advise I can give you is just give it a try!  You’ll have some failures and some amazing successes.  And you’ll learn from both.

If you’re planning on growing oysters, try an all weather variety like blue oysters.  I’m not sure how king oyster would fruit in buckets with their large stems.  Golden oysters I avoid after my first time growing them on grain in quart jars. The caps are so thin, and even with a heavy fruiting, they don’t yield much. And they are not native to the US and are escaping into the wild from people growing them.

Once you see pinning on buckets, the more often you mist them, the faster and larger they’ll grow.  Pick them when the first mushroom in the bunch starts turning the cap edges upward. At this point it’s starting to release spores.  

And to further tempt you, here is a picture I just took of what those buckets look like now after I already picked over seven pounds off of them

Kevin,

What sized hole did you drill and how many holes did you drill?

Eric,
Holes are 1/4” in diameter.  I put 3-4 drain holes in the bottom, then drill about 4” apart all up and down the bucket, not drilling in the top or bottom 2”.  I never counted the holes! You might want to drill in a diamond pattern like drilling logs.

Straw is layered about 2-3” deep, then spawn, then straw and repeat until you reach the top.  I use a 5.5 pound bag of spawn per eight buckets the first time.  After three generations of straw used as spawn, I’ll start with new spawn.   Pinning takes eight to nine weeks, but that may vary.