After finding a recent crop of wild oyster mushrooms, and eating my way through most of them. I wished the mushroom party could continue.
Since I had successfully propagated the mushrooms to another couple of tree stumps, I thought, why not try it indoors.
Since these mushrooms like dead wood, I needed woodchips or wood pulp. Sawdust is more appealing because the mycelium can grow more easily through it. I then hit upon the idea of using compressed wood bricks that are used in the fire place. After doing some research, I found that most are thankfully just pure wood with no added chemicals. So, off to the hardware store.
At first I attempted to break up the bricks by hand or other tools, but soon found that this was too labour intensive. Work smarter, not harder. I had noticed at the hardware store that some of the wood brick packages had been exposed to the weather and the bricks had disintegrated.
So I broke the bricks into chunks, placed them in a container and added water and waited. In no time the bricks absorbed the water and disintegrated. So time to move on to the next step, bagging the wood pulp and layering pieces of mushroom throughout the bag.
Once the bags were full, I taped them shut and let them sit for a day to let the moisture soak through the wood pulp. I then make holes in the bag to allow the excess water to drain and let the mycelium breath.
This is where I currently am at. I don't know if this will succeed, but it has been fun so far to experiment. I should know in a couple of weeks if I was successful. I'll keep you updated.
