Finding Fresh Mushrooms
Back in the fall, I found some beautiful chanterelles growing outside in my front yard, and since then my mycological interest was peaked. Maybe it was picking up over $100 worth of mushrooms in a week across multiple weeks as the rains were agreeable just by walking into my front yard, or the fact that local, foraged mushroom prices at the grocery store are ever-rising, or perhaps even that the freshest mushroom I’ll ever get from the market is still far older than the mushroom I picked before cooking. While I’m sure there are more mushrooms in my yard I can grow given they sprout up all over my lawn and fallen stumps, the only ones I’ve been able to consistently identify are chanterelles. Knowing I couldn’t clone the mycorrhizal relationship the chanterelle mycelium has with my giant evergreens inside my house, I decided to look for mushrooms I could cultivate and grow at home.
Mold Problems Galore in Cultivation
After some “light” reading of Paul Stamets’s books Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms and the backbreaking The Mushroom Cultivator, I decided all the techniques and options listed were probably fantastic, and found them as a good reference guide for the basics, but realistically they suffered from two main problems. That is, the idea is you need a substrate such as straw or wood chips to be completely clean from contamination. Easy enough. Boil things! Or pressure cook them. Both are good.
The problem is, I live in the Pacific Northwest. Short of a lab environment, trichoderma, a type of mold, infests everything it can. In fact, I even had a bag of mushrooms from a lab that was infested with trichoderma. So I needed an alternative.
After having purchased my mom and friend bags of oysters for their Christmas gifts, and growing some shiitake and lion’s mane myself, I tried to figure out some alternatives. I found something about growing oysters on coffee grounds from various sources, including someone trying to sell you the information that could be conveyed in 30 minute videos. The idea is that the coffee is already pasteurized, so as long as you use it the same day, it should be fine. Maybe. Unless you live in the Pacific Northwest and need to use more science than that. During my multiple attempts that ended in moldy glory using the mushroom butts from my mom’s oysters to start colonizing some coffee grounds, I did realize they seemed to be doing just fine on the cardboard I started them on. I’m sure it’s less nutritious than using coffee grounds, but what I can say for certainty is it didn’t grow mold. That alone made it a winner in my eyes.
An Easier Alternative for Growing Oysters: Cardboard!
So, how to grow oyster mushrooms on cardboard?
- Get oyster mushroom stem butts (the very base of the mushroom, sometimes has some of its substrate on it still – note, grocery store mushrooms aren’t always the best source here unless you get them from a local market, and you’ll be looking for fuzzy mushroom butts about to grow. If you know someone who grows them, found some in the wild, or have some left overs from a mushroom growing kit, or my personal favorite, the mushroom butts from imperfect produce mushroom deliveries that are very butty)
- Boil cardboard. I did it for like an hour after all my previous mold woes, but honestly the mold isn’t going to go hang out on the cardboard, so don’t fret that much.
- Tear the cardboard into single layers after cardboard cools enough to touch (don’t have to do this step, but mushrooms grow much more quickly if you do)
- Place cardboard in a container – such as a plastic bag or tupperware
- Snuggle oyster mushroom butts between two layers
- Add water whenever it looks like it’s dry and keep in moderate darkness to get the oysters established
- When container is full, give it about reading light, and open the top of the container. Mushrooms will gradually sprout.
While the mycelium is moving into its new home, it does better in slightly dimmer locations, but honestly, oysters are pretty hard to kill unless you invite trichoderma over for a party, so don’t fret it too much! The only additional problem will be flies in the heat of summer, making this a great fall and winter project. Photos below!
