Mushroom cultivation: course with Milkwood Permaculture

A couple weeks ago I did a mushroom cultivation with Milkwood Permaculture. Wow it blew my head. By the end of day 1 I was convinced that it was interesting but not something I could do. Too hard, too complicated. I was never any good at science.

The course was in Sydney so I stayed over night with a good friend who took me out to a great vegetarian restaurant. We had fun. And overnight something shifted. I became determined to learn everything I could in the course and give it a go.

Well I learnt the most amazing things. I know how to take a mushroom, take a small tissue sample out of it, grow it in agar in a petri dish, transfer it to grain to give it more space to grow, then to a bigger container of grain, then to a coarse substrate of straw.  Then harvest my own home grown mushrooms. It still does my head in but I know I can do it.

I have spent the last few weeks gathering equipment. I needed a pressure cooker and still air glove box like this:

My order of petri dishes arrived this week.  I am ready to go.

I am very exciting about honing my skills, and will share my stories because I want others to know that you too can grow mushrooms from home. It greatly expands your repertoire of home grown produce, adds considerably to your nutrition and options.  Once I master this and a course comes up I am going to learn bee keeping.  I suddenly feel like I am winning on the homespun front.

Eucalypt logs innoculated with shiitake spawn that we prepared in the class.