Now that the nonsense of road trips and beach dips are nearly over, I can get down to my much awaited bucket grow! Today is about getting all the materials together so we are ready to go next week. My daughter in law is going to join in the fun - they're busy walking around Melbourne cafes at the moment looking for food grade buckets with lids. Recycling would be better, but if not, I'll grab some from our local hardware as they aren't very expensive and can be used again and again!

I'll be growing oyster mushrooms, following the instructions of the Milkwood Permaculture people down in Tasmania. Their video course is quite comprehensive.

What I need is:

• Straw (clean, seed free - sugar cane mulch in a bag might be best bet)
• Sawdust (currently asking in community pages if anyone has any hardwood shavings from chopping wood - we're out!)
• Micropore tape (from the chemist)
• Hydrated or builders lime
• Gypsum
• Sterilising liquid
• Gloves and goggles (because the lime can be irritating)
• A pillowcase to drain the pasteurised substrate
  _ An esky (to keep the hot water and substrate in for an hour)
• Rope to hang the pillowcase til it's drained
• A tub to mix the substrate
• A bucket to measure the straw
• A step drill to drill hols in the buckets
• Food grade buckets with lids, 4 - 5 L in size

As far as I understand so far it's a matter of sterilising EVERYTHING, pasteurising the substrate, and then stuffing the buckets with it.

I'll be detailing exactly what we do in another post, but for now, it'll be cool to have any tips you have to throw at me! It's taken a while to get all the stuff together.

Oh, one thing that's bothering me is whether my mushroom spawn is viable still. I've left it in the fridge whilst on holidays - it was dumb of me to get it so early - I think it's okay, but it would be cool to have an unequivocal yes/no from the HIVE fungi grower crew!