Hi, my name is Riverflows and I'm a fungi addict.

Look, I can't help it. It's Autumn so they are everywhere, and once you start noticing you can't help but see them everywhere. And then you start looking into growing them and - well, you're truly an addict.

I've been looking into growing mushrooms outside, and finally ordered a bag of wine cap mushroom spores from Aussie Mushroom supplies to do it. I chose a semi shaded part of the garden I could fence off from the chooks and rabbits, which gets lovely and shaded as soon as the plants grow in the Spring.

Basically the apple crate was full of compost and a kinda hugelkultur of logs anyway, so all I had to do was layer woodchips, spawn and straw and give it a good water.

It is quite late in Autumn so I might not get mushrooms til the Spring or even next year. But the mycellium will work it's way through. I also planted some winter white oyster mushrooms in a more shaded part.. perhaps I'll get them sooner.

So they will look like these babies (image from Wikipedia) if they grow...

2011-05-19_Stropharia_rugosoannulata_Farl._ex_Murrill_183478.jpg

If you are interested in growing mushrooms outside, this is an interesting video which shows you how it's done.

Have you ever gardened with mushrooms? I'm excited to say the least. I'm sure everyone else here is bored of my fungus excitement. Sorry not sorry!!

Lest I really take the piss by doing two #gardenjournal fungi growing posts, I'll include the INSIDE mushroom growing in this post. If you're bored now, feel free to just upvote me and move right along. I'll post a non mushroom #gardenjournal post later, promise.

On the weekend I made the final improvement to the fruiting chamber to improve yield - a 12 v fan, both intake and one that circulates air around the chamber. To be honest, I gave up - my head wasn't in the right space and I think that complicated wiring would have taken me all day. I mean, it wasn't that complicated - it was just following a simple circuit diagram and anyone could have done it, it's just it took the hubs probably a tenth of the time it would have taken me.

The chamber has to sit neatly in my yoga room, which has a heater on a timer to 12 degrees C. Our house gets cold in the winter and I dont like to heat rooms unnecessary, so the door is usually shut to this room. Currently I'm growing white oyster mushrooms so they dont mind lower temperatures. In the death of winter this room can get down to 6 degrees but really most of the time it's above that, so the heater isn't on ALL the time, just when it gets super cold at night. Vive la timer!

The other timers I have are for the humidifier - it probably uses a litre of water every five days or so, max. The other timer is for the fan to come on for the fresh air exchange - it comes on about six times an hour, according to some settings I worked out via the course information I had. If you want a good yield from mushrooms, temperature, fresh air and light are key. Hopefully the yield off these babies will be better than the last lot.

What I was thrilled about was the big tub I bought from Bunnings that sits PERFECTLY under the chamber to stop water getting on the floor had a lid in two sections, which fit perfectly on either side of the top of the chamber, one for the fan, and one for the humidier. Couldn't have planned it better!

These mushrooms mycelliated the buckets in a week - much faster than the last grow I did. All mushrooms are different, and the temperature etc makes a difference too. It's pretty exciting seeing the white mycellium move its way through the substrate.

That's exacdtly what fungi is doing in the soil under your feet. And exactly why all the chemicals they put in agriculture are fucked - they're killing the mycellium which actually helps crops. Let's hope a little more awareness is coming into this area as it might just save our lives. I hope to watch this doco on Netflix soon - you might be interested if you're into growing your own food and saving the planet!

Things must be perfect in that chamber as they really didn't take long to start to pin. See those little dots and the white mass? It doesn't take long to have mushrooms from this point! Two days later and they LOOK like mushrooms. By the time you read this post, I would have already eaten a mushroom feast.

Honestly, growing mushrooms is just another way to build food resilience and get the nutrients you need from your backyard produce. If you're interested in growing them, it is easier than you think, once you get some basics down.

This post was written for this month's challenge for Hive Garden, which you can find in my profile or pinned in the Hive Garden community.