Annie Hope

I have some unhulled barley grain that has dead grain weevils in it.  (I put it in plastic buckets and froze it).

I have had great success in the past sterlising unhulled barley and growing on spawn, but the weevil addition is a new thing.

I have read about people adding a protein source to their spawn medium, but usually something like soya beans rather than weevils.

Anyone know how oyster mycelium will respond?  Will they break it down or will it be a source of food for competing molds / bacteria?

In New Zealand hardwood is not easy to find, and so mushrooms are often grown on sawdust pellets from pine sawdust.
https://www.mycologic.nz/growing-on-blocks

"Overseas books normally recommend hardwoods, however in New Zealand, pine fuel pellets are the most readily available and cheapest form of compressed sawdust, which many growers have success on."


I read somewhere else, but can't find now, that the heat process that forms the pellets deactivates the resins in the pine.  I have experimented with pellets a bit and got mycellium growing in jars of woodpellet sawdust.

So without being an expert, I think you could easily pressure cook a few jars/bags of wood chip and grow a variety of mushrooms for dinner.  If you have more woodchip than can be easily heated, then this will be more difficult.

There are oyster mushrooms that grow on pine, but they seem to be rare:
https://permies.com/t/36692/fungi-grown-pine
http://amateurmycology.com/?p=1164

"But I think generally you'd start the seeds around the equinox, and for non-roots, potentially transplant (or plant bought plants) before the average first frost?"


Thanks for the reply.  Are you writing this for the northern or southern hemisphere?  We are almost at the shortest day  (21st June).  The gardening tradition here is not to plant pumpkin and other frost sensitive plants till the end LAbour day (end of October) as frosts are very unlikely after that.  But highs of 13C or more are common mid winter as well as light frosts.  The average high in midsummer is 23C, we are very temperate here.

I am living in NZ where we have occasional frosts down to -3C, but also temperatures up to 14C during the day.

It is the shortest day in a week's time in the Southern Hemisphere.  What is it that triggers biennial vegetables to go to seed?  Is it cold weather or the shortening and then increasing days?  If I plant biennial seeds after 21st June 2025, will they not go to seed till spring 2026?  

The house in on piles that are about 40cm off the ground.  IT does have insulation in ceiling, under house and at least some external walls.  ((Definitely in the new section walls build 20ish years ago, not sure about the walls built 40ish years ago).

no, mainly because the only insulation I know of is rather toxic stryrofoam based.  I do plant to have double walls of plastic and raised beds and heat sinks at the edge to help buffer plants prom the cold at grass level.

I am building a leanto greenhouse that is doubling as "double glazing" insulation and heat store for the house.

We have a house on wood piles with an open gap between the floor and the ground.  

In terms of the plant health I think it best to plant directly in the soil.


As far as heating, I am not sure.  On the one hand I am thinking if we plant in pots and keep the ground dry there will be less heat moving from the outside into the house area in the soil.  On the other hand, I think that watering the ground will help the day's heat transfer into the soil and make a large thermal mass battery.  
We live in a temperate zone.  The Grass level will often have frost to -4C in winter that melts by 10am, but the soil is usually at least 7C+ 10cm down, and 14C year round within 1m down.  There is likely going to be as much warmth coming up from the soil as frost coming in sideways.  

I have seen lean-to greenhouses in places that go to -20C that plant directly in the ground.  

I live in a sandy area with a high water table.  Even after months of summer drought, my well has water at 2m deep.  The grass may be dry and dead, but my orchard will produce fruit without any irrigation. In winter it is much higher and in flood years the lowest points can be under the water table.  

We also live 7km from the sea.  We get frosts down to a max of -4 that are gone by 10am.  At 10cm / 4in soil depth the average monthly soil temperature in mid-winter is still 8C, (46F) and at 1m soil depth, the temperature sits at about 14C (57) year round.  Theoretically then, our water table should be sitting at 10-14 C in the midst of winter (depending how high the water table is - when the water table floods for months over winter  we never get a frost)
We are looking at putting up a Chinese style greenhouse that is 36m (118ft) long.  
How would we pull up the Geothermal heat?  If we just dug an open pond to the water table, would the cold air sink into the pond and heat rise from it naturally, or would we need to have some sort of passive air flow built in?  (Such as the Manti Greenhouse?)

I would like to raise the thread with the question of how to practically use solar hot water and wood fire heat (including stored heat) to make power in the KW.  Is there an easy go-to DVD or website somewhere?

Also, is it possible to use the same unit both to generate thermo-electric heat, and to create heating and cooling with electricity.

I am in in a place with both solar and wind in abundance, but am interested in peltier for the following reasons:

- I would want to pump water in summer anyway to irrigate my gardens from a sand-trap bore
- I would want to pump water in winter anyway to take heat from my heat store, and put it under my heat-loving plants, (or to put heat into large bodies of water to 25-30C like my pallet swimming pool or water around a methane middy).

A also want to produce heat when needed for things like:
- A backup for under seedlings if there is several days without sun
- to keep things like youghurt at a constant temperature

I also want to use cold for things like the following without spending big money on the appliances that do this:
- Making ice cream
- cooling down mushroom rooms in summer
- Cooling a temporary cool room to 4C or less to hang meat for a week when the yearly calf is butchered
- Putting excess electricity into heating a heat store above boiling temperature
- Putting excess electricity into a cold room to give berries their sufficient chill hours and then grow berries out of season.

I have inherited 3 blackout tents, with lights for each and ventilation fans for at least one.  This is an example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1suSz5ObVs

The details are:  
40cm x 80cm  floor x 50cm  high propagation tent with two 20W led lights.  these will cost 23c a day to run lights for 18 hours.  

Grow Tent 60 x 60cm floor x 180cm high with 250W Halogen bulb.  It will cost $1.60 a day to run for 18 hours.
Grow Tent 150 x 150cm floor x 120cm high with  500W Halogen bulb.  It will cost $3.20 a day to run for 18 hours.

I have had no previous experience using grow lights at all, but do have tables of seedlings in front of the lounge room window each winter/spring.

I am in a very temperate climate on 8 acres.  I can understand the use of a propagation tent to ensure that emerging seed/seedlings stay warm enough to sprout well, but don't grow long and sideways towards a window light.  Especially fussy tropical things like Bottle gourd or papaya seeds that want to stay at 25C soil temperature.  I also appreciate that they will help keep the soil most with tiny seeds like celery etc. I do wonder about whether they will easily damp off, however, in a closed environment.
Are these of any greater benefit than a cheap Temu seedling tray with clear top and LED lights built in put on top of the fridge or on a heat mat?  (Which I have just bought to try for the first time with $1 per seed papayas when I got these tents.)

I wonder about the Grow tents, however.  Unless you are growing something illegal or have free excess electricity, can they ever be cost effective to grow plants to maturity?  Are they just a fancy hobby for apartment dwellers, and why would they not want to have the plants in full view with just grow lamps - unless it is for places that have very cold and low humidity winters?

This is maybe a topic for another thread, but if I do make my dream greenhouse with passive heating and wood fire back-up heating, and have over 9 hours  of natural light on our shortest day, and minimum temperatures that never go below -4C, is it worth the cost to extend the daylight hours with LED lights unless the plants require it for fruiting (e.g. Capsicum)?