A couple of weeks ago I posted about the purpose and functions of fungi. I’ve been wanting to get a mushroom yard going in the back yard for a while now, and while we’re looking at autumn for this, we went ahead and ordered an indoor kit from Fungi Perfecti to get things rolling. We know we like Shiitake, Portabella, and Button mushrooms, but we don’t know if we like Wine Caps yet, or not. We’re hoping to get a feel for how much we do or do not like this mushroom before we decide how much to inoculate the garden spaces with it. Some have described it as being similar to Portabella, so we’re hopeful it’s going to be good.
The kit arrived this week, and while I did open the box on day one, I only just got the spot for it cleared out, the tray to put the bag in cleaned up, and a spray bottle to mist it with “acquired” from other duties in the household to re-purpose it for the mushrooms moving forward. I’ll be starting the kit either tonight or tomorrow (today as you read this) and will probably take photos of the process as I go. It should take a few weeks to a month before we see any mushrooms poking up, but it should last a few months before it consumes all of the wood chip medium it was shipped in. The great thing about this kit is that once its used up, I can put it out in the garden areas with some fresh wood chips and propagate it further. If we really like this variety, we’ll probably order a second indoor kit, and I’ll do an ‘unboxing’ / ‘getting it started’ video of the process with a side by side comparison of how the kit looks when you start it out, and how it will look when it fruits. I’ll also go over how to tell when to pick them, and when they’re ‘overripe.’ I’ll also likely do a second video showing how to turn the first kit into an outdoor mushroom bed that can be used to grow out more, as well as how to select a site to put the bed, and so on. Until then, I’m looking forward to getting these to grow and trying out the flavor profile from cooking it different ways. As we figure this out through experimentation, we’ll share that information as well.