Choosing the right Fun"Guys"

After much talk with Eric, and reading through several other fungi posts, I think it may be time for me to start digging deeper into the whole mushroom thing. Who knows, maybe I'll try to grow my own someday.
So if you follow me or have seen some of my other posts, I am working on (trying to make less typos and) trying to improve my hard clay soil. I have a steady supply of horse manure, and an area to have mushrooms grow, but I had a few questions.
Concerns:

Safety for my children.

I want a fungi that is safe for my kids. I can't keep them out of the dirt and I am constantly chasing them away from the compost (it's a pile and it's fun). I want something that they can (as kids are) put in their mouth and won't kill them (it'd be a hard sell to my wife otherwise).

Reliability.

I want to be able to add compost to and possibly remove compost from the pile without completely wiping out my fungal colony. I would like to use it as a working pile that also hosts a colony. Is that even possible? Can I possibly till the colony in and get it to come back (may be needed time to time to maintain drainage issues).

Hardiness.

We have periods of dry (summer and between hurricanes in the fall) and periods of soaking wet (late winter and through spring) conditions. I'm not sure if I need to do anything to help provide a safe habitat for mushrooms.

Interference with other plants.

I would like to be able to use the compost in my gardens, probably between rows of crops throughout the season, and a good mix at the end and start of the season. I don't want Fungi A getting in and messing with Plant A, B, or C. I grow mostly for food, but try to mix my plant families and growing types through out.

I'm interested in learning some new things, and possibly adding fungi to my collection of plants that I try to keep alive (dispite my boredom driven efforts to disrupt them).

Other posts
New Year, Here We Go Again
Raised Beds & Compost
Forum having to do with soil conditions.

John, welcome to the world of fungi aka mushrooms!

Here is a thread that you might enjoy:

Eric said, "go with Wine Caps.  My reasons are as follows:

https://permies.com/t/131350/Beginner-Mushroom-Varieties

Anne,
I read Eric's post as well as the Composting wood chips with chicken litter forum, but will wine caps survive through winter? Will they survive being turned once a week? Do they have any negative interactions with other green plants?
If you moved the soil to a new area, say in between rows in a garden, would they spread to cover the whole garden? (not like evasively, but is that a possibility?)

Or is there another variety that would handle the rougher conditions that I'm proposing?

These were the kinds of questions I had in mind when I stared the thread.

I know some of those conditions are not really what you are supposed to do when growing mushrooms, but my space is limited, so I will have to work from the same pile as I try to grow them in.

Can you grow cover crops along side mushrooms?

John,

Wine Caps are generally best left undisturbed.  But if you have mulch of wood chips or straw, they can grow GREAT right beside vegetables.  In fact they kinda fertilize each other.  I didn’t really appreciate the importance of soil biology until I started Wine Caps.  Also, Wine Caps are not only harmless but actually a culinary mushroom.  And you can’t miss a Wine Cap for anything else—they get HUGE!  They easily get to be the size of my hand fully outstretched.  But for starters, either try wood chips (which I know you have a hard time sourcing) or try some straw bales.  I can walk you through either.  I don’t have the link right now but I will try to get you a link to my Wine Cap thread.

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

I also have some links that attach to related pages from there.  That first thread starts with me being a complete fungal novice, naive in every respects to growing mushrooms.  It continues to near present day where I have a degree of capability.  I keep it updated so people just starting off can see they are not alone.

Ok, after Re-reading that thread, although I wouldn't be able to use them for compost that I plan on adding to the garden, could I use mushrooms in/on my berm? It is full or organic material, I think it would help berry bushes grow, and I don't think that a fungal colony would survive me working with the pile. I think some of it would survive, but would be very weak and very spread out, which I think I'd be lucky if any took off.
Is there any other variety that could withstand those kind of stresses?

What about seeding it directly into the area between the rows in my garden? (It is fairly low traffic, and if I fill the valleys with yard debris and horse manure, it should be a fairly rich environment full of material to be broken down.) Assuming that they can form a successful colony over the spring, summer, and fall, they should survive being turned in the winter, as well as helping cover crops grow and breaking them up in preparation for the following spring.

Yes wood chips are hard to locate, I'll make a note to reach out to a few people who might be willing to have a load "fall off the back of the truck".

So having fungi on the farm/ homestead is super beneficial, cool, and easy. However reading this post I feel like there’s some clarification needed. If your compost is a hot pile your turning frequently then don’t bother. If you want to compost with fungi it’s a cool process, ie leaf mold... the easiest fungi that I’ve used in the garden are wine caps and oysters both of which I grow on straw or wood chip mulch which typically has compost under it, I disturb the mulch frequently planting, weeding, adding compost and the established mycelium is unaffected. Also I frequently will take a cover crop blend into the mulch and let it do it’s thing the result is a great cover crop stand and typically void flushes of mushrooms. I like to then hand crimp the cover and add more mulch then the fungi has even more food.

John said, "Yes wood chips are hard to locate, I'll make a note to reach out to a few people who might be willing to have a load "fall off the back of the truck".

If wood chips are not available then use an alternative.

Leaves and straw are the first to come to mind.  

Hay has too many weed seeds so avoid that.

Maybe you explain this that I did not see.  I have to ask why are you disturbing the soil so much?

John said, " Will they survive being turned once a week? Do they have any negative interactions with other green plants?
If you moved the soil to a new area, say in between rows in a garden, would they spread to cover the whole garden?

Here are some threads that you might find interesting about soil:

https://permies.com/t/93911/soil-mother-nature

https://permies.com/t/76498/biology-soil

https://permies.com/t/126240/heck-Humus

https://permies.com/t/86117/Bacteria-Fungi-Nematodes

Anne,
I would be getting weekly (sometimes bi-weekly) deliveries of horse manure, and since my space is limited, I can only hold it to rest and start decomposing for about 3-4 weeks before I need to move it into garden beds. I'd rather not just put it straight into the beds because I don't want to allow for cross contamination to the food crops (kids don't care, dirt is dirt). But after a day or two past deliveries, my compost heap runs around 130 degrees, which I think that by allowing it to sit for a week or two, should kill most of the bacteria.
As far a woodchip alternative, I should be getting leaves and other yard debris this week which I plan on mixing into my garden. I can get it for free and get it every week, if need be, but as it's for the whole town, I don't want that much. I was thinking about doing the fungal growth in the area between the rows in my garden, as that is a place that I won't disturb as much, other than walking down the rows to observe the plant growth, or to check on the growth of the mushrooms. I will probably put the spores in line with the rows, but I be adding a layer of manure to the tops of the rows before I plant, and then adding more manure between the rows throughout the season to build up the soil for next year. My hope is to spread the manure then enough to make it into a cool compost instead of a hot one which is where I will let it set for a few weeks. I could also mix leaves or grass clippings in as the season progresses, but that is just a thought for right now.

Does that seem like it could potentially work?
I have a map of all of my plants planned, inch by inch, and I could add in spore insertion points. Do something like 3-6" from each planting location. For the most part, I plan on starting my seeds in the greenhouse and transplanting them out, so they should be pretty well established by the time they are near the fungi, and I just wouldn't put fungi in the rows that are being direct seeded. That should allow them more than enough time to get estabilished prior to being introduced to the fungi.

My goal with all this is to hopefully develop a healthy, sustainable, and successful soil that I can be able to (with periodic maintenance) be able to move the bed to complete no-till, and to give me the skills and resources to convert my other beds to the same. I have tried other methods in the bed and I have gotten some success, but I would like to switch to a method that requires less spring prep work (other than a light raking and harrowing to build rows) and will be more sustainable overall.
With much of the organic materials being supplied off site and for free, I believe that having the skills to incorporate them in properly and having the right microbes, fungi, and other tiny critters to convert them will help me with becoming a more permaculture based growing operation. Unfortunately for now, I'm having to do a lot of work on the subsoil to get it stable enough to support a healthy topsoil.

Eric, and everyone else,
After calling around, I found a new tree trimming service that does chipping. AND he'd sell me a trailer (approx. 12'*7'*3') for only $30. He asked if I had any preference as far as wood type, I said no, as my main reason for them is just to build up, right now. So, he'd call me when he has another job that requires it.

I know that some types of wood are harmful to mushroom growth, and when I get to that point, I will do the research and start reaching out to him for specific types. But I want to build the relationship with him first.

Just FYI, basically any non-conifers are great for Wine Caps.  If you want the relationship first, I totally understand.  If it has a conifer mix, I would be tempted to just spread on the ground unless you are ready for Wine Caps now.

I'm not sure I'm ready for them just yet, I'd like to level a few places in the berm and do some clear cutting of the brush on top first to allow room for my berry plants to go in. I'd reason, because we are in pine country, it would contain a good bit of pine, mixed with, ya' know, normal trees. (I'm not a huge fan of pine trees.) So it might be worth asking what percentage (let him guess) the pine is in it and go from there.

Can aged pine chips work with wine caps? or is there a process or something that makes them more suitable for use with mushrooms.

John,

I just don’t know about how well the conifers will work with Wine Caps but aging them and partially rotting them should help.  This makes getting the piles of chips now and aging now a good idea if you can find a corner for them.

But even using them as mulch on walking areas down wonders to break them down.  Wine Caps might be iffy there, but the decaying chips would definitely decompose the chips and help the soil beneath and soil adjacent.

Eric

Eric, I'm glad you mentioned that. If I covered walkway with the chips (like the area between rows in my garden) and introduced spores on the sides, (assuming that the width is not too large), the fruiting portion of the fungi should be fine, left undisturbed on the sides, while the 'rest' of the fungi Should do wonderful to spread and prosper with light traffic above the wood chips. Right?
(Based on my limited high school and college education, Tennessee Public schools & North Carolina Community colleges)

John,  

For optimal results, give the Wine Caps some degree of safe haven.  The hyphae (essentially fungal roots) will spread throughout the wood chips but like being undisturbed.  So, yes, I think you can use wood chips on the paths and some in the edges of the growing space (or better yet, cover ALL the growing space.  The Wine Caps will certainly break down the chips in the growing space and will at least start on the paths themselves.  The paths themselves will get ground down and decay via bacterial action over time and may even push up a mushroom here and there.

If you are growing for chip decay, just do it.  If you are looking for actual mushrooms, the process is a bit different.  Fungi are like plants in reverse.  The main part, the mycelium, grows in the wood so long as there is wood to break down.  This is where sexual reproduction takes place.  Once the wood has been consumed and the fungi faces starvation, it sends up the mushrooms—the fruiting body—to release spores or the asexual part of reproduction.  This means that actual mushrooms grow best as the fungi are starving.

Even if you don’t get mushrooms, the mycelium do wonders for breaking down wood.

Eric

So this forces me to make a decision, do I want mushrooms or do I want break down?
The rows are 3' on center, and I usually only use 6" of that. I wouldn't be able to get the tractor or any rolling tools in between the rows after the support structure goes in (which is pretty much every row). I'll have to do some thinking on this.

I ran up a draft on excel of what it would look like having the spore points positioned in each row.

Spore starting points are 6" apart. Red - Supports, Yellow - Plant, Blue - Spore location, colors in between are mixes of the two of the three.

One thought on mushrooms:  start small and work out.  Do you plan on growing tomatoes?  These are my favorite companion plants. If you can get mushrooms (or even just some nice growing fungi) started, and if you have more woody and/or straw mulch around, the hyphae will extend into the surrounding mulch and infect that too.  In short time you should have mushrooms popping up all over.

So, this is what is going in my garden this year:

1. Bean, Kentucky Wonder
2. Beet, Detroit Dark Red
3. Cucumber, Soyolong
4. Eggplant, Black Beauty
5. Pea, Green Arrow
6. Pepper, California Wonder
7. Pepper, Keystone Resistant Giant (TMR)
8. Radish, Cherry Belle
9. Squash, Black Zucchini
10. Squash, Golden Zucchini
11. Squash, Table Queen
12. Squash, Waltham Butternut
13. Tomato, Beefsteak
14. Tomato, Burpee Big Boy Hybrid
15. Tomato, Litchi
16. Tomato, Patio F1 Hybrid
17. Turnip, Purple Top White Globe
18. Carrot, Chantenay Red Core
19. Cucumber, Early Green Cluster

I'm actually cutting back on tomatoes this year, but everything except for the root vegetables has 75' length total, in 25' increments. I was thinking of putting spores under the tomatoes and cucumber plants and allowing it to spread to the squash, peas, and beans, while not putting any near the root vegetables (maybe not even putting chips in the area until they are established).

I wouldn't mind doing the whole area, and if it succeeds, awesome, if it doesn't produce any, it wouldn't be much of a loss because at least it added organic material to the soil.

I’d also go with Wine Caps.  The only other mushrooms that are commonly grown that sound like they might work, especially with partially composted horse manure would be Almond Agaricus or Blewits.  I’d think twice with Blewits because of toxic look alikes. The Blewits would overwinter, the Almond Agaricus would not.