Mycology Resources 10 Cheap Gardening Methods To Food Independence Alex Pietrowski, Staff WriterWaking Times The issue of food quality and food independence is of critical importance these days, and people are recognizing just how easy and fun it is to grow your own food at home. When renegade gardener Ron Finley said, “growing your own food is like printing money,” he was remarking on the revolutionary nature of re-establishing control over your health and your pocket book as a means of subverting the exploitative and unhealthy food systems that encourage the over-consumption of processed and fast foods. Thanks to the internet, the availability of parts and materials, and good old-fashioned ingenuity, there is a wide range of in-home, and in-apartment, gardening systems that are easy to construct and maintain, and that can provide nutritious, organic, and low-cost food for you and your family. Aquaponics Read: Aquaponic Gardening: A Step-By-Step Guide to Raising Vegetables and Fish Together Vertical Gardening Simple Greenhouse Designs Composting
Lingzhi mushroom Taxonomy and naming[edit] Names for the lingzhi fungus have a two thousand year history. The Chinese term lingzhi 灵芝 was first recorded in the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220 CE). Petter Adolf Karsten named the genus Ganoderma in 1881.[2] Botanical names[edit] There are multiple species of Lingzhi, scientifically known to be within the Ganoderma lucidum species complex and mycologists are still researching the differences among species within this complex.[4] Chinese names[edit] In the Chinese language, lingzhi compounds ling 灵 "spirit, spiritual; soul; miraculous; sacred; divine; mysterious; efficacious; effective" (cf. Since both Chinese Ling and Zhi have multiple meanings, Lingzhi has diverse English translations. Japanese names[edit] Japanese language Reishi 霊芝 is a Sino-Japanese loan word from Lingzhi. Reishi synonyms divide between Sino-Japanese borrowings and native Japanese coinages. Korean names[edit] Korean language Yeong Ji or Yung Gee (영지,灵芝) is a word from hanja of lingzhi.
Grow Your Own Truffles You don’t have to send cash to unfriendly foreign countries to enjoy black truffles anymore; this pungent and precious fungi is now being grown right here in good ole’ redneck North Carolina. WARNING! Despite the grandiose claims by Garland Truffles that it’s reasonable to make $25,000 per acre growing truffles, there are many well-documented failures. Our bottom line was that while there is a promise of $25k/acre yield, and daily hand-weeding and care for the years preceding the harvest can easily eat-up the profits . . . The State of North Carolina department of Agriculture did a $250,000 truffle grant in 2003 and the results for the foirst truffle harvest will be available in 2009. See my updated truffle notes here, and DO NOT pay for a visit to Garland Truffles (they charged me over $1,000 for my group) until you have checked the NC State data from their truffle grants. “The optimal site for a truffle orchard is an open area with good southern exposure. Scout, the hungry pony
Fatguy's Agar Technique Agar inoculation has been used for cultivation mushrooms as well as bacteria and molds for several years. The key to using an agar solution in cultivating mushrooms is sterility. Keeping the work surface and your hands clean and free of contaminants is the most important thing in using agar. I recommend that a HEPA system be used but since most people that use this forum cannot afford one, a glove box can be successfully used or a homemade HEPA design (what I use) will work. Choosing an agar solution to work with should be pretty easy. Agar production and pouring I use a Malt Extract Agar (MEA) solution that is shipped to me in a powder form. -Mix 50 grams of MEA (7 Tablespoons) for each liter of water. You can use a Mason Jar as a container to mix and autoclave the solution. Here is an important point: Unless you have a container that will hold about 2 liters of solution for each liter that you want to make, I would suggest that you make 1/2 liter batches of the agar solution.
How To Grow Mushrooms The Process for growing mushrooms is pretty easy. But it does vary depending on the type of mushroom you are growing. With this tutorial I will show you a typical and easy way to grow Pearl Oyster Mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus). You Will need: Some kind of bucket or container - Typically a 5 gallon plastic pail is used. The picture below shows my materials. If it is going to take a while to collect up your coffee grounds you can store them in the freezer so they won't get moldy. Fill your bucket about halfway with coffee grounds. There can be more and I will show you why in a minute. If your coffee grounds are dry you should add some water at this point and let the water drain out. Now break up the mushroom spawn and add it to your bucket. If you have enough spore and coffee grounds fill the bucket up to within an inch of the top. This prevents carbon dioxide from building up on the surface. Cover your bucket with clear plastic and perforate it with a few holes. RESOURCES and MORE
Growth on Agar Perhaps this will be the year when you devote a corner of your garden to growing your own portabellas, criminis, shitakes, shaggy manes, Lepiotas, oysters, enokitakes. In this column we will give a basic outline of mushroom cultivation techniques and try to answer your questions about cultivation. Each article will briefly cover a different aspect of mushroom cultivation: I hope cultivation corner will provide stimulus and help you establish your own cultivation corner. I. The first phase of mushroom cultivation is the isolation of a pure culture of mycelium. PD(Y)A should be sterilized for 45 minutes at 15 pounds pressure. Potato Dextrose (Yeast) Agar (PD(Y)A): Potato Water 1 liter Dextrose 10 grams Nutritional Yeast or Yeast Extract 1-3 grams (optional) Agar- agar 20 grams Potato water is prepared by boiling a large, washed but not peeled, thinly sliced potato in water for one hour. Commonly used spore isolation techniques include: A. B. Next: Growing Mushrooms on Grain
Growing Morel Mushrooms: Multiple Techniques ShareThisFacebookTweetLinkedInPinterestEmail The process of growing morel mushrooms has baffled amateur and professional mycologists for years. Now that we know more about the mysterious morel, growing your own is certainly possible. Be aware that these are difficult mushrooms to cultivate, and it may take years before you see results. Reading through the other morel pages on this site before you start will help you better understand their life cycle. Below are a few different ways to grow morels, ranging from easier techniques to more difficult. Click here to share a morel growing story with visitors to this page! The Grow Kit and Spawn Method One of the most popular ways of growing morel mushrooms is with purchased spawn. Mushroom spawn is simply the mycelium, or "vegetative growth" of the mushroom, and the material on which it was grown. This mycelium-infused material is then used to inoculate larger batches of substrate to create a mushroom bed. Prepare your morel bed: Plant your spawn:
Coffee Grinds to Mushrooms: A How to Guide | LunarHarvest Yup. I’m not pulling your leg and I’m not kidding you around; oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus) are a species of fungus that can digest coffee grinds, including the filters that they are often discarded with, and produce reliable crops of mushrooms. I was skeptical at first but after doing what seemed to be no more than a month casually searching through online do-it-yourself blogs and investigating companies which distribute mushroom kits and spawn (such as The Mushroom Patch) I had the confidence to give it a shot. I was rewarded with not only beautiful and tasty oyster mushrooms but an acquired set of skills that I can now use to develop further cultivating techniques for this sadly underappreciated crop. Approximately one month after mixing together the coffee grinds and mycelium together, the oyster mushrooms are well into their first flush. But why would you want to grow your own mushrooms? Step 1. Chances are, there is a coffee shop near where you live. Like this:
Mushroomers ClubA Successful Story of Blue Oyster and Shiitake Mushrooms Cultivation ~ mushroomers club This is a guest post by Devon Olsen, an active member of forums (permies.com and shroomotopia.net) on permaculture and fungi cultivation. This is the story of his first attempts in cultivating Blue Oyster and Shiitake mushrooms. His story is interesting and was posted here with the intention to help some people out there in their first trials of cultivating such types of mushrooms. I guess mushrooms have always been kinda cool, but ive never really felt fascinated about them per se, but about a year ago i found a thread on permies.com about growing Oyster Mushrooms on an old phone book i think it was. Learn more about Oyster mushroom cultivation reading How To Grow Oyster Mushrooms on Logs or the simple plastic bag cultivation of oyster mushrooms by checking my post How To Transform Paper Into Food there you'll find links to a more detailed cultivation method of oyster mushrooms.