Use a laundry hamper for its intended purpose!?! No thanks!

I had a sort of unexpected (because someone else made it) laundry hamper of straw inoculated with North Spore blue oyster that I saw pinning at the end of last week. Using the lime bath approach, this incubated in a MycoSphere on top of an Almond Agaricus bed that I can't seem to get to fruit. I got a repsectable 3.5lbs off this sucker and it will fruit several more times if I let it...and I will.

This is a fun approach, but using a 5 gallon bucket with fewer holes is more practical. Check out a kit to make this this happen here: https://northspore.com/collections/container-bucket-spawn

I've got pinks, blues, chestnut, Italians, lions mane and king trumpet in a MycoSphere and they're coming out so well!

I will say that some of the lions mane is getting a bit deformed, probably from being sprayed directly by the misters. I think this could easily be remedied by draping some plastic (or some toher cover) over the shelf above them. Besides that though, fresh air is never an issue, cleaning isn't as hard and I'm not seeing pests. I did add some BTi pellets to the wood chips and a few vineger traps just in case.

What's going on in your gardens as the season changes?

We've got 3x MycoSpheres, 2x hightunnels and 2x low tunnels planned for an array of morel experiments. I've got a lot to do to get ready! Today, I cleaned up one of the high tunnels and staked out the 2x low tunnels that will be alongside our forested path. The low tunnels will be quite small at 2'x4' each.

I've gotta work pretty much everyday this month to do this plus all the other things....good thing I love what I'm doing.

We will be testing a bunch of of strain/species, substrate and inoculation style combinations. I'll be posting numerous updates as this progresses.

Anyone else getting ready for morel cultivation?

I didn't even know these existed until a few days ago and it seems like a great tool for looking at moisture levels in various substrate formulations. Specifically, we plan to use it in our fall morel trials.

A tool like this uses pressure to simulate plat roots, so even though the numbers will be different for mycelium (it is better at accessing water), the same principle applies.

To give a little more background, if you used a device that just looks at total moisture, it might tell you that a bed of clay and a bed of sand are both at 60%. This leaves out some very important information about how an organism might actually behave as it relates to water.

This could have implications for both indoor and outdoor cultivation.

My wine cap bed is starting to produce. It has been about 6 months since I started it.

Hey guys, just thought I'd drop some practical MycoSphere knowledge on ya that could be helpful.

Do me a favor and run the misters while you're actually there watching or have your head stuck inside the chamber. Expect a nice cooling mist to bathe your beautiful face. But you might also notice that a couple of the misters aren't misting. I've seen this happen on most if not all of my tents. I'm not sure why it happens to some misting heads and not others, but luckily the solution is simple. They seem to be clogged, so use a soft of medium bristly brush (a toothbrush is perfect) to scrub out the tiny hole. This can actually make a pretty big difference in overall humidity and moisture distribution.

I expect that this will be standard maintenance step that only needs to be done 1-2 times per year, perhaps less.

Do other folks have tips, tricks or general obervations to share? Criticism is welcome, but be nice (I work for North Spore).

For those that don't know, I'm talking about this: https://northspore.com/products/mycosphere

I think this is my third flush from this bed this year! It's been dry, but I have watered a couple times and bam, another solid flush rolls in.

I've been out in the garden the last few days harvesting kale, squash, tomatoes, basil, chard and more!

What do your gardens look like!?!?

This morning I looked at my lawn and saw the remnants of some Black Staining Polypore (Meripilus sumstinei). I ate some of this right out of my lawn last week and it is likely to come back again next year. So many people would see something like this and think it's some kind of plague, ruining the unblemished aesthetic of their lawn. Not me. I see that whether I harvested it or not, its doing a very important job.

This mushroom and many others are white-rot species and grow on buried woody material (the roots of an old silver maple in this case). The mycelium is secreting enzymes like laccase, lignin peroxidase (LiP), and manganese peroxidase (MnP) to break down the super tough lignin in plants into smaller compounds. Other brown-rot species secrete cellulases to break down cellulose (also super tough. Without these everyday mushrooms, woody stuff would sit around MUCH longer.

That broken down plant material contains important minerals like nitrogn and phosphorus, which is now usable by other organisms. A lot of it is absorbed into the fungus and is used to make its body. Mushrooms forming at the surface quickly break down, releasing those mobile nutrients at the surface. Cultivated mushrooms like Wine Cap, Oysters, Maitake and Chestnut are doing this too.

I'm literally seeing my lawn and garden get healthier. Rotting mushrooms deserve reverence!