Science Forums 2

[mavrickjohn]

If you know your mushrooms and know the good eating ones here is an easy way to inoculate fresh hardwood wood chips, TP, and your garden soil. In perennial beds ( Strawberry's, Blackberry, raspberry, asparagus's, and herb gardens) lay down a 3 to 4 inch mulch bed of hardwood chips no older than 2 weeks old. Pepper the bed well with TP prepped with nitrogen. Get a fresh mushroom that you want to grow in your beds. Make a spore print of the mushroom on glass or paper with the mushroom covered with a bowl for small mushrooms. Large ones need not be covered. Leave the mushroom for 12 hrs. Use a dust mask when working with the spores and wash your hands before and after working with them.
A bucket filled with a gallon water that is not from the tap is next to make. The water should be boiled for 10 min. with 1/4 teaspoon of non-iodine salt and 1 tablespoon of sugar or light molasses. Let the water cool to room temperature between 50 to 80 degrees.
Scrape the spores into the bucket and cover. Let it stand 24 to 48 hrs shaking 2 to 3 times. Make sure the bucket has not contained chemical or milk products. Now pour the liquid into a clean pump sprayer and apply to the mulch bed you have prepared. Cover with a light layer of straw and keep the mulch moist.
Good candidates for the garden are Hypsizygus ulmarius (similar to oyster mushrooms) King Stropharia,Shiitake,Nameko,Lion's Manes,Shaggy Manes, and possibly Morels.
This method can be use in your orchard and on your shrubs. You can also put inoculated logs in the garden area buried 1/3 deep in the ground.
While I realize that there are many more non-fruiting mycelial than fruiting I personally would pref fer to start with the eatable ones first. Mycelial spores falling from the air can do the rest.
If you want to just kick start the Mycelial infection of your bio-char use some nitrogen to keep it from pulling nitrogen from the soil and soak the bio-char with sugar. to start off the spoors. Remember Mycelium wants sugars from the plants because that's what it needs to grow.