Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Phoenix Oyster Mushrooms

My mom and I decided to cultivate some edible mushrooms up on our property. The acreage has been selectively logged and so there are all these piles of wastewood all over. We'll try and use as much firewood as we can from them, but there is so much fallen dead wood that it would take forever. So I thought it would be fun to do mushrooms!

I just ordered some spawn for the Phoenix Oyster mushroom. The logs are mostly conifer types, and those do well on the softwoods. I ordered from Fungi.com and I also decided to get a couple ounces of their MycoGrow to mix in with my seed starting mix this year.

Here's the description from the website:

This member of the Tree Oyster family thrives on conifer stumps and logs, especially spruces and fir; after incubating the logs may be partially buried, vertically-oriented, to conserve water during fruiting. This species enjoys warm climates, producing large, white-beige mushrooms.

The cool thing about Oyster mushrooms is that they are very difficult to ship, therefore any locally produced mushrooms would fetch a premium price. We won't be selling any for a while, but it will be a good option for us when the time comes if we're able to grow them. We also might try Chicken Of The Woods. I'd love to grow shiitakes but they need oak trees and I have none.