Wood chips for mushrooms?

[Johnny Vodka]

Okay, so have seen/heard of various interesting mushrooms growing on wood chips, so think I'll get some for the garden. Is there anything to know about beforehand or do I just grab a bag from any garden centre & cross my fingers?

 

[Cid]

There's a ridiculously advanced group on facebook.

e2a: here

 

[gentlegreen]

wayward bob Saul Goodman

This guy grows them all over his garden :-

 

[gentlegreen]

Don't make the mistake I once did and buy a load of shiitake plugs before I'd located any suitable logs....

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Yeah, been doing some reading this morning. Think I'll stick with buying wood chips and just see what happens... Also want to have another go at throwing some libs over my lawn (if I can find any). Actually did this a few years back and had some libs sprout the next couple of years. I did pick most of them, when I should have probably left alone. Maybe I should do what the guy is doing in the video above and dig them a bit into the ground rather than just scatter?

N.B. In my dad's last care home, there were morels growing from chips, and seemingly wavy caps are also pretty common on them.

 

[wayward bob]

it depends on what you want to grow - different types have very different preferences. but more to the point it depends on what's available, if you're going the commercial spawn route. i got my heart set on wine caps but could only find one place that actually has any.

the chips need to be hardwood is the main tip i picked up, then sort by cheapest on amazon obvs if you have transport and/or a garden centre within reach you'll have more choice for cheaper

 

[Johnny Vodka]

I'm off to some local garden centres (and maybe B&Q) on Friday, so will probably just pick up stuff in person. If there are various types, I'll probably try a few different ones. I don't plan on buying any spores, just see what occurs naturally. There are spring bulbs planted in some of the areas I want to cover, but I believe they can poke through okay?

 

[wayward bob]

lasagne-style planting seems to be all the rage, i'm sure they'd be fine.

freshness of the chips is apparently also important although how you can tell with a bag in a shop is anyone's guess...

 

[gentlegreen]

lasagne-style planting seems to be all the rage,

corrugated cardboard ?

 

[wayward bob]

corrugated cardboard ?

is also pretty good for growing mushrooms, i heard. my patch is adjacent to the compost so i imagine will be overrun with competing local things in nanoseconds

going the chipping/bed route makes it less obvious that it's just a compost extension (which it totally is) and bringing in some spawn gives it a chance of something taking

 

[wayward bob]

corrugated cardboard ?

what i meant was layering things like bulbs, so you're getting full-depth growing in the available space

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Well, I bought a bag of bark mulch and a bag of red wood chips from B&Q tonight. Am off to Dobbies on Friday, so will see what they have - if I can get another bag of something different, I will.

 

[wayward bob]

my oak chips for the wine caps came yesterday and i've roughly "pasteurised" some of them (=soak in boiling water, leave to cool). don't have masses of spawn so i'm doing a slipshod version of proper, sterile, indoor cultivation to give them max chance of taking. and as a warm up to doing it a bit more carefully with sawdust for the lions mane.

am also going to use the chips in two batches with about two weeks between them - the idea is the mycelium takes hold in the smaller amount of chips then spread/dilute with more chips. although i just twigged the cat shitting in it will prolly do the mixing for me

 

[StoneRoad]

Maybe a little late, but do check that the chips haven't been treated with anything nasty ... at one time this was done to aid in the suppression of weeds.

 

[wayward bob]

the pet/food quality are less likely to be treated i think

 

[gentlegreen]