Oyster mushrooms growing from wood chips in 5 gallon bucket

Angelika Maier wrote:I once or twice managed to grow oyster spawn from shop bought oysters on cardboard but they did not survive when I "planted' them outside, maybe I did not water enough.
I would like to try it once again but I don't like the plastic, even I can get the buckets for free - is it possible to grow oysters outside say in a wood chip pile? Or how about making a tower with chicken wire and filling it with wood chip? How much cardboard spawn would I need to how much woodchip 1:10 more less?

I know that when I put a woodchip bed for my watermelons to grow on, there were mushrooms growing up. That was in full sun too. They were hard to get rid of until I dried them out. I think what you're talking about is possible, it'll definitely take some experimenting though.

Myceliated cardboard to woodchip is certainly doable and there are some great references out there that can help you along the way to growing mushrooms with that method.

The focus of this thread, however, is using wood chips in 5 gallon buckets.

Best of luck to you with all your growing (ad)ventures!

I just got some king, brown, and blue oyster spawn from Field and Forest. I'm planning to use buckets. Has anyone tried oak heating pellets? Water turns them into pretty fine sawdust. I was wondering if it'd pack too tight or not have enough nutrients? Maybe I should mix with straw or cardboard.I'm going to use a bucket with holes inside another bucket. I'm planning to pasteurize them in an old Igloo cooler with boiling water. Does this sound like a good plan?

Thanks!

I am so excited to give this a second go around. I have had trouble finding spawn in Canada. I did find one good source for oysters and shitaki. But, I would really like some Portobello. Spores101.com was where I found my Canadian source. They have a small selection of edibles, reasonable prices and fast shipping. Does anyone know of a place in Canada to get some Portobello, or cermini, spawn?

I believe the Facebook group, Mycology and Botany Classifieds has some Canadian sellers.

Don't know about y'all but I'd have to figure petroleum products whether absorbed and broken down would somehow leave behind toxins in some form. Like an above poster said heavy metals are elements in their simplest form. As broken down as they get is still probably toxic. Lead in its simplest form is in fact lead...

Ken -  From my research I'm going to do basically the same thing that you were asking about.  I will use hardwood fuel pellets and then sterilize them with boiling water.  I think the biggest issue with using buckets and fuel pellets is to put a small drain hole on the bottom of the bucket so excess moisture can drain.  So I'm curious how well it's going to work out too, but from my research, other people have had success doing just that....I will find out very soon with lions mane.


Jenn -  If you can get portobello and cremini mushrooms at your market, then you can split the mushroom open, take a small bit of tissue, and grow it out on agar.  And from there you can get a clean sample to start a culture with.

If you're interested in growing mushrooms at home, I would highly recommend the resources provided by Peter McCoy. He published a book called Radical Mycology that makes it MUCH easier to grow at home by creating your own spawn. He offers workshops (which I have attended and are worth every penny) and recently, hid Kickstarter campaign for a Mycology school (for the people) was recently funded. So he will be producing tons of online courses as well...

Another good resource is Trad Cotter's Book -  Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation: Simple to Advanced and Experimental Techniques for Indoor and Outdoor Cultivation

Happy Shrooming !

EDIT - I see now that Peter is a member here and there are current threads about his kickstarter, etc... I want to re-emphasize that Peter's methods offer many hacks that save a lot of $ over other methods of cultivation. If you're interested in growing fungi at all, follow his work.

Thought i posted a reply. guess it didn't work.

Does using vegetable oil really work?? I have heard about motor oil and oyter mushrooms cleaning that up, but does vegetable oil do the same? I tried once inoculating some cardboard and keeping it wet, it sorta worked but never fruited. I think the cardboard was lacking in some nutrients. So thats why i wondered if cardboard soaked in vegetable oil might work?

I started two 5 gallon buckets about two weeks ago. Kings and greys. The holes on one are already white with mycelium. When should I remove it from the outer bucket?

The other bucket just has a little white here and there.

They are in the basement around 70 degrees.

I used oak heating pellets in a cooler, and soaked them with boiling water.

Seems to be working great so far.

Whoa there! "food grade" bucket may only mean the bucket has never been used to hold cleansers or other non-food safe toxic this or thats. Food grade may totally ignore what the bucket is actually made from but the oyster mycelium will eat what the bucket is made from, very probably petroleum based plastics. A relatively rubbery texture as compared to if grown in straw or whatever substrate out of reach of petro-products.  Ugh, OgreNick

Nick Dimitri wrote:Whoa there! "food grade" bucket may only mean the bucket has never been used to hold cleansers or other non-food safe toxic this or thats. Food grade may totally ignore what the bucket is actually made from but the oyster mycelium will eat what the bucket is made from, very probably petroleum based plastics. A relatively rubbery texture as compared to if grown in straw or whatever substrate out of reach of petro-products.  Ugh, OgreNick

Food grade buckets do not ignore what they are made of, it is the primary classification for them. Non food grade buckets have the possibility of using non food grade mold release agents or post consumer recycled plastics, ie. Contaminated with unknown toxic gick.

High density polyethylene HDPE is stable against the most powerful acids and bases it is highly unlikely that fungi will find an enzymatic key to break it up, Even if it did it would only be a problem if the HDPE is contaminated with heavy metals.

Wow, huh, i had no idea... I thought the closest one could get is BPA-free, which leaves som'n called BPS, which has within it, BS cuz it's just trading one known endocrine disrupting chem for another yet to be suchly classified. The high density makes sense. Wouldn't it be nice if used to make things more built to last, than just destined for the landfill and stop planned obsolescence, which is opposite of sustainable. They could use hemp or whatever from nature (above the Earth's surface) and sure, then make things with a window of biodegradability, 50 to 10 years would fine, by varying density.  

As far as I remember the BPA issue is with hard clear plastics like polycarbonate and epoxies like used inside tin cans.


I meant to add to this thread earlier, if you don't have local access to organic straw you can probably find chemical free hay. It worked well for me with oysters and I think they appreciated the extra carbs and protien.

Some on the thread have mentioned the Goldielocks pasteurization zone of 140-160℉ and others have mentioned sterilization with boiling water. From what I've read pasteurization is preferred because it will leave behind bacteria that won't really compete with the fungi for the big pail of food but will for detrimental bacteria.

From my own experience pasteurization worked effectively but never tried outright sterilization by boiling for comparison.