I thought some folks might want to see an update on what I’ve been growing. For reference, I tried to grown button mushroom spawn on boiled cardboard, only to learn a few days later that this shouldn’t be possible. Imagine my surprise when the mycelium started growing anyway!
So it’s been about three weeks now and growth has been painfully slow, but then again they didn’t really have any decent food. I also realized when I opened the container that there was still way too much moisture in the cardboard. Today I transferred what I could into grain jars to give it a better chance at growth. Basically I went through all the layers and peeled the cardboard apart, then tore off smaller chunks of anything that had decent growth on it. This was divided between a jar of popcorn kernels and a jar of rye berries, so I have a good chance of one or both jars really expanding the small amount of spawn I had available. Considering this was started from chopped stems I got at the grocery store, I’d say I’m doing pretty good so far!
I’ve started doing some reading on how to make the pasteurized compost for this type of mushroom, hoping to start picking up supplies next weekend to get it ready.
Last update… the jar of rye berries has suffered the same fate and is also lost. Such a bummer, I I have a suspicion that my mistake was in taking the lid off to get the above picture before placing it inside the still-air box. Ah well, at least I have more knowledge of what I can do and what I shouldn’t do. It was fun to see what would happen, and next time I’ll get them started in a properly sterilized jar immediately instead of messing around with multiple transfers.
Meanwhile my oyster mushroom spawn should be ready for fruiting bags soon, so I’ll focus on them for now before trying the cremini again.
Some parting pics of the destruction. Please avert the eyes of any small children, they shouldn’t be exposed to this travesty…