Shrooooms

Well it's winter time and I'm having gardening withdrawal.  What to do what to do...I know! I'll grow Mushrooms!!  ok so I dont know if I will actually grow them or not but I am going to try!  I looked all over the web.  It is hard to find button mushrooms.  I am not a huge mushroom fan as far as the varieties and stuffing them and all that jazz but we do use a fair amount of button mushrooms.  It must be a top secret thing to do because not only could I not find the spores, but there were no directions online that gave me step by step instructions!

I started out by buying a form of button mushrooms that were on amazon.  They are not actual button mushrooms but are called field mushrooms.  They are suppose to be a close cousin to them and look about the same and have the same taste.  So I bought two packages of "approx 500 seeds coated in spores"  Here is the package.

So I am going to take this opportunity to tell you what I am doing and lets hope this works.  All the info I found online is different but generally the same. So here goes and lets hope for the best.

1. I took composted cow manure from my local garden supply store and placed it in a fairly large tote.  I placed in one bag and spread it on the bottom which gave me about 4-5 inches of "soil."

 2. I made three rows with my hand about 1 inch deep down the tote and took half of one of the packs of seeds and sprinkled them in the rows.  I covered them up and packed it down.

3. I sprinkled warm water across the entire thing so that the soil would be wet but not soaked. It was already pretty wet.

4. I placed a thermometer in there with humidity recorder and placed it in an area that was around 70.  Right now this is on top my pellet furnace but will be moved tonight to in front of it. (I will eventually need to put pellets in..duh)

5. I placed the tote lid on top and am going to keep close eye on the temp.  It is suppose to be 70 for the first few weeks until the spores germinate and make a whitish cobweb looking thing on the soil. 

6. Next I placed a dark blanket on top to help hold in heat and keep light out.  The room I am using has almost no light but I need to turn it on to check the pellet stove and whatnot..so that is why I placed a blanket on top.

Future Steps:

I will mist this soil everyday until I see something happen.

7. Once a whitish film is over my dirt or something simular, then I will add a 1 inch layer or so of organic peat.

8.  I will add a layer of newspaper on top of that.  I will soak this in water and ring it out so that it is damp then lay it on top.  Then I will water that everyday with a spray bottle. I will move the tote to the floor in a colder part of the room. Around 55 degrees.

9. I will check it often and when little buds start forming I will take the newspaper off, keep the lid turned catycorner a bit to let in more oxygen and keep covered until they get big enough to pick. 

If I remember I will add more pictures as I go and what I am doing but in case I dont here is what I am doing.  Hopefully they grow and I remember to at least blog the results!