Outdoor Mushroom Cultivation Methods: An Overview

Fungi are likely one of the most underutilized and under appreciated, wildly abundant food sources available to humans in temperate climates. Mushrooms can contain as much as 20% protein and are packed full of health supporting nutrients including vitamins, essential minerals, antioxidants, beta-glucans and plenty of protein. Additionally, many species contain a high potency of a variety of medicinal compounds such as terpenoids, phenols, peptidoglycans, polysaccharides, and triterpenes. Furthermore, they are very easy to grow and require much less input that your annual garden crops.

Yet as a culture we tend to overlook them, in fact we are often afraid of them unless they have been cleanly packaged on a grocery store shelf.

As food prices rise, access to oil peaks, human health continues to decline and our standard agricultural practices decimate more and more ecosystems it is time to consider mushrooms as a significant part of a modern, nutrient-dense diet that contributes to improved human health and the restoration of the planet.

Why not add mushrooms to your garden, yard or forested area?

Here we cover three commonly used, low-tech methods for growing mushrooms outdoors. These are all low-input, organic, beneficial to the environment and will give you the gift of gourmet and medicinal mushrooms for years to come.

Growing Mushrooms on Logs

Shiitake logs at The Forest Farmcy

In a healthy, diverse temperate forest mushrooms can be found growing on live tress, on dead trees, from tree roots and in leaf litter. Many species of mushroom want to be around trees in some way. They have evolved deeply connected, intimate relationships together over eons.

Growing mushrooms on logs or under the forest canopy, is the best way to get as close to the nutritional and medicinal benefits of wild harvested fungi.

The method is simple and once set up requires very little maintenance.

Using fresh cut logs that have not yet been colonized by any other type of fungi is an easy place to start. Simply introduce spawn of the mushroom species you want to grow, seal it into the wood and leave it somewhere moist and shady.

We grow a wide variety of mushrooms on logs including, Oysters (Pearls and Blues), Shiitakes, Reishi, Lion’s Mane and Chicken-of-the-Woods.

The spawn gets to work growing mycelium by consuming the lignin and cellulose of the wood

Depending on the type of mushroom and wood you are working with you will start to see mushroom flushes in 6-12 months which can continue seasonally for anywhere from 1 to 10+ years. We typically get around 6-8 lbs of Shiitakes from one medium sized log over 7 years.

After the fungus has consumed all the food from the log it will simply crumble into healthy organic matter that you can use to improve the health and fertility of your garden or farm top soil or just leave it to nourish the trees it’s been under for the last several years.

With this method you are working with the cycles of nature, following the natural course of growth, decay and re-growth while encouraging the increased production of human-grade food and medicine.

It’s organic. It’s regenerative. It’s restorative. It’s agriculture for basic human food production at it’s finest.

Growing Mushrooms on Wood Chips

Blewits that volunteered in the garden

Certain species of mushrooms prefer their wood chipped similar to naturally occurring piles of forest floor debris! Some of these mushrooms are edible and delicious such as Wine Caps (Stropharia) and Blewits.

If you have access to a pile of wood chips this is a simple way to get started in mushroom cultivation. Again, it requires minimal set-up and almost no maintenance.

You simply inoculate a patch of wood chips with mushroom spawn and lay them on the ground somewhere moist and shady where they won’t get stepped on.

In about 6 months you will have edible mushrooms growing out the wood chip bed ready to land on your plate.

Eventually, after about 18 months, the wood chips will be fully consumed by the mycelium and will become fabulous nutrition for the top soil.

Growing Mushrooms on Straw

Pearl Oysters growing on straw indoors. These bags can also be kept under a tree.

Straw is a major by-product of American Agriculture. It’s either considered a waste product or fed to animals. The vast majority of straw produced in the US in not organic, that is, it has been sprayed with artificial herbicides and pesticides.

So why would you want to grow your food on it?

Because certain mushroom species will break down the herbicides and pesticides into non-toxic carbon and hydrogen atoms leaving you with nontoxic mushrooms and straw cleaner than you started with. You can safely eat the mushrooms and use the spent straw on your garden. We tend to grow Oyster mushrooms on straw because they have this clean-up ability.

Straw grown mushrooms produce a lot faster than logs or wood chips, often you’ll see a flush within two weeks. Then they will flush every 10 days or so for up to 2 months.

How to Get Started

We hope that this brief overview has given you an idea of which methods will best suit your needs. There’s no reason you can’t do all of them!

Start by looking at the land you are working with. Where are your moist, shady areas? What would work there? Logs, wood chips or straw bags? Maybe all of them.

Then think about what type of mushrooms you want to be able to freely access. Maybe a mix of gourmet and medicinal mushrooms?

Next figure out what substrates you can easily get a hold of. Do you have access to fresh cut logs without cutting down any live trees? What about wood chips? Do you know where there’s a big pile nobody is doing anything with?

Fungi are opportunists, they send up fruit bodies (what we know as mushrooms) when the conditions are just right. As mushroom cultivators we can take a similar approach. If a neighbor cuts down an oak and is ok with us taking some limbs then we grow Shiitakes. If someone has a pile of fresh wood chips they want to get rid of then here comes a crop of Blewits. If we find ourselves with a few bales of extra straw then Oyster soup it is!

However you decide to get started on your mushroom growing journey know we are here to help. We have a wide range of classes available each year from three-hour introductions to weekend campouts and highly specialized masterclasses.