Do mushrooms count too? I currently have multiple blocks of Lion's Mane and King Oyster going. I also make chickpea tempeh. Since I only have an indoor space, I can't grow large-yield food plants, but I like to grow spices and teas. At the moment I have mint, turmeric, and very young chamomile plants.
this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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Oh really! I’m so fascinated with mushrooms. I started a log with oyster mushrooms but it hasn’t produced anything yet (after a year)
I grow in bags indoors so I don't have experience growing mushrooms in logs yet, but it is something I want to try
Is it like those kits you get? Those are great
Yes - they are like some of the kits! I buy a culture once and then use the culture to make the blocks myself.
Here is a picture of one of my Lion's Mane:
Oh that’s growing great! I tried the lions mane last year and also oyster. Oyster was super easy but my lions mane didn’t grow well. So you are propagating the mycelium?
Hmm, maybe the the Lion's Mane was contaminated? 🤔 When the colony is clean it tends do well over a wide range of conditions.
Yes, I do propagate the mycelium in agar plates. I grow the mycelium on the plate, then inocculate a jar of cooked grain, and once the grain is colonized I put the grain into the fruiting block (oak hardwood pellets, wheat bran, and water)
I bet that’s hard to get right. Lots of ways it can go wrong I would think, right? How did you get into that?
I bet that’s hard to get right. Lots of ways it can go wrong I would think, right?
Relatively sterile conditions are needed because the gourmet fungi tend to grow very slowly relative to common molds and bacteria, and if spores of a fast growing species gets into the growing medium they will quickly grow and deplete the resources. So you can easily end up with a block of mold or of bacteria instead of the intended fungus! It takes some practice and a bit of equipment to prepare the agar, grains, and fruiting block under sterile enough conditions. But now that I have some experience and that I have the materials at home it is not hard anymore.
How did you get into that?
I was in college and I learned about the lifecycle fungi in biology class. It was fascinating, so I looked into how to grow fungi online and discovered a trove of resources about growing psychedelic mushrooms (Psylocibe cubensis), as well as learned that their spores were legal to sell and buy online. So I bought some spores. After growing these I ended up with the problem of having too many mushrooms that are illegal to have. I had no intention of selling them, there was no way I could eat all of that myself in a single lifetime, and I did not have enough friends experienced with psychedelics to gift them to. Most of them were simply tossed out. So I faced the problem: I want to grow mushrooms, but the output was a liability. That's when I started branching into the world of "gourmet mushrooms", and found several interesting species to grow. So you can say that hallucinogenic mushrooms were my gateway drug into the world of gourmet mushrooms.
I grow all kinds of plants, some weird experiments including. I am a very chaotic gardener. I love my vegetable garden, as well as my houseplants or stuff I grow in hydro. I want to grow more flowers outside.
My veggie gardens have always been gangbusters the first and second year, then the critters find it and it's downhill from there.
Perhaps it's that the yard has gotten more shady over time too. I overextended myself and planted too many fruit trees and vines ( in the case of grapes) and now I struggle to maintain them. At least the pawpaws don't need maintenance, but I don't know if they'll ever produce fruit.
I still have a a few containers with edibles, but but the parsley and Brussels sprouts I planted in my raised bed got eaten by rabbits I guess? I have chicken wire around it but something has found a way around it. If I plant seeds, very few germinate. I have a feeling that squirrels or insects are eating the seeds before they have a chance to sprout. I've seen birds pecking up my sunflower seeds. The sunflowers that sprouted were eaten by a groundhog. 😕
I'm starting to look for rabbit resistant native ornamentals. Growing food is hard, yo!
I’m an obsessed landscape gardener with perennials, shrubs and a few annuals making up my flowerbeds. I garden for pollinators and birds, mostly, with a few purely ornamental things I can’t give up (roses, clematis). I grow a few edibles every year (tomatoes, some greens, and cucumbers, usually), but it’s not my focus. It always took me by surprise in r/gardening that the default seemed to be vegetables in mist people’s minds. :)
You know for me the perennials took some time to get into. With veggies and annuals you get instant gratification but it takes more patience to grow perennials- but man once they start they can’t be stopped! My foxgloves are new new favorite thing
I'm probably not the target demographic of this community, but I'm a big believer of whatever plants I have need to give back more than what I put in and be self-sufficient. Rhubarb, raspberries, wildflowers are good because they mostly take care of themselves. I'm kind of an anti-gardener I guess?
I, too, consider myself an anti-gardener. My long term goal is a good forest. In the meantime while the fruit trees grow I'm not relying too much on production and focusing on soil building, and increasing insects.
I'm not mowing this year, and I left the acorns and leaf litter over the winter. Not sure if it's confirmation bias, but it feels like I have more lightning bugs than last year. I know my yard has enough to support a number of snakes, rabbits and possums; a box turtle; and at night when I go out with my headlamp, it's a sea of wolf spider eyes glaring back at me!
Oh wow, sounds like you have a thriving ecosystem in your yard! I'm right in the city so can't commit to no-mowing (there are bylaws about it) but the slow conversion to less maintenance and more enjoyment is a worthy one.
You can get around those with mulch & perennials! Unless the grass itself is required, which sounds awful