I have dreamt of having a mushroom farm for a quite a while now. Ever since I read, Mycelium Running by Paul Stamets, I have wanted to create one . Mushrooms, are the immune system of the earth and as a result really boost ours as well. I want to grow them for culinary and medicinal purposes and also to use the left over substrate for regenerating the soil.
For me, the future is all about creating regenerative solutions and Fungi play a huge part in this.
The last few days, I have been thinking about all the things I will need in order to create a mushroom farm. I would love to be able to grow some outdoors, but because of the climate here, that is not really possible. So I have been thinking of suitable containers.
It gets quite hot here in the summer and I would like to be growing them all year round, so I have been thinking of getting refrigerator containers. The ones you see on the back of trucks. Mushroom's like humidity, so I really have to think about creating an environment that has a stable temperature. These trucks are pretty well insulated so it would be easy to maintain a fixed temperature, so that leaves getting some humidifiers to bring ore moisture into the space.
I would need at least 4 or 5 different area's/ spaces. An incubation/culture room, a grow room, a fruiting room and a harvesting room. And then there is the decision as to what sort of mushrooms I wish to grow, at the moment I am thinking mainly those type of mushrooms that grow on hardwood. Shiitake, Oyster, Reishi, TurkeyTail, Lionsmane. To start off with.
Just writing about this gets me super excited. Mushrooms are so healing for us and the planet. There benefits are numerous and new species are being discovered all the time, included a type that eats plastic!
My knowledge of fungi, is all self taught and it is something I am super enthusiastic about it.I have always been fascinated by them and have always got super excited when I see them growing anywhere.
I really want to grow mushrooms for myself, my community and the wider community. To sell them fresh, dried and in powder form. For which I will need some kick ass dehydrators.
I love the idea of growing them from scratch, once I get supplied with some spores of my own. Then I need to wait for two compatible spores to mate and watch as the mycelium start to grow.
At this stage I really need to think about the substrate I will use to grow the mushroom on. Some folk use sawdust, others have had a lot of success with coffee grains. I like the idea of having a blend of things, so that my mushrooms get to feed on a mix of things that are super nutritious.
This then needs to be placed in a sterile bag, this has got me pondering as I would love not to use plastic, so I am thinking of alternatives. But it really needs to be airtight as the mycelium colonizes You know it has been successful when you see a big bag of white mycelium. This all happens in the grow room.
Once you have all that wonderful mycelium you need to bring it up and add it to new bags of substrate. One bag of mycelium should be enough to inoculate 20-30 other bags/blocks. It is important that the substrate you use is sterilized, this can be done using steam, in what I envisage to be huge drums.
What I love about mushrooms is that they take between 4-8 weeks, start to harvest.
I learnt a neat trick recently, that if you slap the bags/blocks, it simulates the tree falling in the forest and shocks the mycelium into growing.
Oh I do love to learn, little tricks and techniques
This is when you move the bags into the fruiting room. You make incisions in the bags, so that the mushrooms can begin to grow outside. The mushrooms grow once the mycelium has used up all the food source you have given it. Which will hopefully be super nutritious. . Giving me super mushrooms!
The once those mushrooms have grown fully, it's off to the harvesting room. I have been learning so much and I do hope to do an online course soon, once I have the funds to do so.
I need to move off the current land I am on, so I see this as a wonderful opportunity, to focus on getting some land to create my mushroom farm on. This of course all costs money, so I have begun the process of manifesting this by writing this post.
It is time for me, to put what knowledge I have to practice and live out my dreams!