Trying to Grow Mushrooms on Sawdust

So I’ve been looking at growing mushrooms lately.  Way back in the olden days, say fourish years ago, I used to grow Shiitake mushrooms on sweetgum logs outside, with moderate success. Somewhere along the line I stopped and can’t really remember why.

Anyway. the other day I bought, from MushroomPeople, a few bags of mushroom spawn (in plant terms, spawn is like transplants; while spores are like seeds). My intention is to grow them in sterilized  oak sawdust in plastic bags. The sawdust must be sterilized so competitor (weed) fungi don’t establish a foothold. Oak isn’t the best, apparently it takes most species longer to fruit on oak as compared to fast decomposing species like alder. Oh well. Find me a freakin alder tree around here and I’ll use it.

I bought three types of spawn: Oyster Mushroom, Maitake, and Lion’s Mane. Lion’s Mane is really funky looking.

Sterilizing the sawdust is easier said then done. If I had a pressure cooker it would be simpler.  Today I tried using  Hydrogen Peroxide to sterilize the substrate, as it’s pretty effective at killing fungal spores (I use it to cure dampening off in seedlings). I mixed hydrogen peroxide with boiled water and poured it inside the bag of sawdust.           Not sure if it worked or not. We’ll see in a few days I guess.

I say sawdust, but its’s really a mixture of sawdust and rice bran with a little lime to balance to ph. I found out that I like rice bran. It smells yummy.

Anyway, I have the bags sterilized and waiting to be innoculated! I would have done it today but I ran out of daylight. More news on the mushroom front tommorow!