[georget]

Has anyone had any experience of growing mushrooms outside.I have a stretch of the allotment that is quite shaded by trees and find it quite difficult to grow much there so i thought of mushrooms. When i Googled growing mushrooms most of them are grown indoors in the dark but I read about wine cap mushrooms which grow outside in wood chippings bu all of the articles were in the states.Has anyone heard of them growing over here.

[surbie100]

One of the garden revival programmes on the beeb was about stumperies. The chappie put spore-impregnated dowels into a log and left it. Result: lovely chanterelles after a year, and they will be producing until the log is completely decayed.

[8doubles]

We used to buy bagged spent mushroom compost to put on the garden, it was inexpensive and if you left the bags for awhile you could get a good crop. 
After the bags were emptied on to the plot you would often get a few more .
Worth a try if you have a mushroom grower locally , not proper mushroom growing maybe but no worse than buying plug plants from the garden centre.

[3759allen]

i am going to try mushrooms myself this year, so will be keeping an eye for any replies.

i have a hedge that gives shade under it most of the day, before i landscaped the garden there were a few fungus growing there naturally so i'm assuming the conditions would be ok.

i will be trying normal button style mushrooms first as i'm guessing they're the easiest to grow, high yielding shroom given that they are the cheapest and most common in the supermarket. a lot of the kits that i've looked at require periods in cold dark conditions and then almost shocking in hot light conditions, as i'm only looking to produce in a otherwise un usable part of the garden i can't be doing with jostling them around.

my dad is also going to try some of the plug varieties as at the moment he has logs rotting away in the woods with fungus on, so thinking it's a good environment to try.

not wanting to hi jack the thread but does anyone know if you can use beech to put plugs in to get mushrooms from?

[bravemurphy]

We used to buy bagged spent mushroom compost to put on the garden, it was inexpensive and if you left the bags for awhile you could get a good crop. 
After the bags were emptied on to the plot you would often get a few more .
Worth a try if you have a mushroom grower locally , not proper mushroom growing maybe but no worse than buying plug plants from the garden centre.

We used to be able to get the spent compost from our old allotment shop, there would be shrooms popping up everywhere.

Alas the price went up to something silly like £5 a bag from 50p

[georget]

Hi do you know yet which mushrooms you re going to grow ,are you just going to grow in the soil or are you planning to use something else.ASi i said wine caps seem to be the easiest to grow outside but I couldnt find any reference to them in the UK. Between us we may get some answers

[3 allotments]

i am going to try mushrooms myself this year, so will be keeping an eye for any replies.

i have a hedge that gives shade under it most of the day, before i landscaped the garden there were a few fungus growing there naturally so i'm assuming the conditions would be ok.

i will be trying normal button style mushrooms first as i'm guessing they're the easiest to grow, high yielding shroom given that they are the cheapest and most common in the supermarket. a lot of the kits that i've looked at require periods in cold dark conditions and then almost shocking in hot light conditions, as i'm only looking to produce in a otherwise un usable part of the garden i can't be doing with jostling them around.

my dad is also going to try some of the plug varieties as at the moment he has logs rotting away in the woods with fungus on, so thinking it's a good environment to try.

not wanting to hi jack the thread but does anyone know if you can use beech to put plugs in to get mushrooms from?

Hi allen i have grown them in logs before , logs beech will work but ash logs are the best use freshly cut as they have a higher sugar content, keep them semi shaded  with an old piece of tarp and water over them when it is hot or windy as the mycelium needs to spread ,you will notice this as the logs stick together but do not move them when this is happening you should get good crops for quite some time i grew oyster mushrooms on one pile and shitake on another pile.good luck ,Darren

[Trillium]

Reminds me of the episode on The Good Life when Margo decides to clean up for Tom and Barbara when they go away for a few days rest. She found a nasty bucket by the furnace and emptied and polished it up shiny. Only to discover she'd tossed Tom's mushroom crop   

I plan to try spreading some mushroom compost in a darkened spot and grow my own small crop this summer.

[3759allen]

does anyone know if you have to keep buying fresh spawn to replace the harvested mushrooms?

or will the spawn left in the soil increase and multiply in the soil after harvest?

or would it be better to leave say one in ten mushrooms to grow on instead of harvesting to re produce spawn?

i'm guessing (can't really find an answer other than you grow from spawn not seed) that the frills under the mushroom contains the spawn to re produce an increase the population, as i can't see any other reason why they have a crop.

think this may be a trial and error as information seems very limited on growing your, most things i've read refer to commercial growing. the only information about home grown seem to be of failure, i'm thinking this is from trying to make an artificial environment rather than where the conditions they prefer naturally.

[Trillium]

There's some good info HERE but you'll have to click onto the different pages.

[Fisherman]

I noticed Suttons are selling standard mushroom spawn in small seed size packs. Is this new or have you experienced trying to grow it.

[Steveharford]

I tried growing from these seeds / kits a couple of times and they have produced absolutely nothing. I reckon it would be more successful to buy some spent mushroom compost and just pile it up somewhere. Must get some.

[wilbzfishing]

Hi can I just check its defiantly ash
Logs as everywhere I've read it's always been oak and avoid ash