Focus On... Mushrooms

From oyster to lion’s mane, there’s a host of choice for gardeners looking to grow their own mushrooms. Lucy explains how to safely cultivate a feast of fungi…

- Lucy Chamberlain

WE’RE used to thinking of fungi negatively in gardening – but that really must stop! There are good and bad fungi, separated by a mighty chasm. Yes, mildew, blight and scab are unwelcome, but how about plonking some homegrown chestnut, button, oyster or shiitake mushrooms on your kitchen chopping board? That will impress the domestic god/goddess in your household!

Growing options and materials

Autumn is the natural time to think about growing mushrooms – moist soil and chillier temperatures stimulating their production. But home-growing comes in kit form today, allowing us to force mushrooms into growth at any time.

To get scientific for a moment, while nuisance fungi are parasitic (in other words, they feed on living material), the mushrooms we are discussing here are saprophytic, so they feed on dead material and won’t harm garden plants.

Most break down and feed off lignin and cellulose – the two major components of woody plant cells. These foodstuffs (called substrates) vary, so kits come in various forms (see the next page), and each will support specific edible mushrooms; those mentioned above are the easiest to source and grow.

Encouraging speedy growth

As well as a suitable substrate, adequate and constant moisture is also needed. Many mushrooms also benefit from a chilling period in order to switch from producing the white, fuzzy mycelium that penetrates the woody tissues to the fruiting bodies that grace our frying pan (see my checklist on page 20 for more growing tips). Some suppliers send out kits where mycelial growth has already been induced, leading to quicker results, whereas others ask you to inoculate the substrate on delivery.