A gift from the earth - tossed project turned HARVEST

[smoothmonkey]

Hello fellow Nexians!

It's been a while since I've been active on here, but that means I've been busy! Busy growing and tending to many projects and ethnobotanical friends. In particular, the mushroom kingdom and I are getting to know each other on a more intimate level.

Taking the advice of many members here I quickly made the switch from cakes to grains, with oh so satisfying results

My first attempt at grains was successful until the very end, in which both of my 66qt monotubs sadly attracted a nasty trich contamination right at fruiting, due to my own ignorance... Think about where you place your monos folks!

With a solemn attitude of defeat, I sadly prepared to trash my months of hard work... So much time spent studying, preparing, and acquiring materials, all to be decimated by the green goblin... nasty fucker. I was to have no mushrooms for the summer...

Rather than try and chop out the contamination I decided to just dump it and start over, though i didn't want to let all of that substrate go to waste. Thankfully, I had a pile of finished compost in my yard that I thought maybe, just maybe, might suffice to host my fungus friends. I dug a huge hole in the compost, dumped one tub, added a compost layer, and dumped the other, covering the entire mass with a nice layer of compost. We had a couple of days of heavy snowfall, and once everything melted I covered the whole pile with 6mil clear plastic sheeting for about ten days. After that, I took the sheeting off and let mother nature do her thing for a while...

To my surprise I began seeing cracks in the compost, so I quickly covered with straw and kept evenly watered, and a few days later was blessed with many fruitbodies

Start composting.
When in doubt, throw it out (into the compost).

Peace,

-SM

 

[downwardsfromzero]

That's compost 1, trich 0!

Your compost clearly has the right balance of micro-organisms to bring that mould into check.


Tasted them yet? :want:

 

[smoothmonkey]

I just ate a fresh one while I was gardening today Next week I plan to journey deep!

 

[downwardsfromzero]

I'll be interested to hear how any trip goes with these quasi-feral specimens!


All in all, very, very cool outcome!

 

[Ulim]

:shock: I need to compost my failed attempts.
Already composted some harvested brown chapignons need to look out for more fruit bodies coming.

 

[JustAnotherHuman]

Nice smoothmonkey!:thumb_up:

 

[Felnik]

Thats beautiful !! I have something similar brewing at the moment I'm hoping it works out like that!!

 

[downwardsfromzero]

:shock: I need to compost my failed attempts.

I need to make an attempt, now it seems we can't lose!

 

[inaniel]

A true gift indeed, beautiful!

 

[null24]

Sweet! Waste not, want not, they say right?
Some great baby pics.:thumb_up:

 

[smoothmonkey]

Thanks guys!

The patch just keeps going, I've been picking roughly an 8th (dry) a day as they mature

 

[tseuq]

mush love...

tseuq

 

[TGO]

Mush love, indeed! Earlier today, I inoculated some PF style jars with Fiji and Treasure Coast spores!

I'd love to try an outdoor patch someday! Good work Smoothmonkey!

 

[smoothmonkey]

They are indeed potent! I had a beautifully mystical and shocking experience with 5g of these outdoor ongolitos. A trip report may emerge as it was something I've never experienced before...

Furthermore, the temperature has dropped here and it's been prime weather for mushrooms, having seen many of the local species growing profusely. My little wonder patch has sprouted up nothing new, to my dismay.. From the time of the last flush until maybe 2 weeks ago its been hot and dry, so the patch stopped doing anything as expected. The mound seeming compacted, I recently chopped it up with the shovel and added more straw and fresh compost, wet it down real good and covered up with branches. No white myc growing..I hope something comes back, there is definitely enough nutrients there and the weather has been nothing shy of perfect.

Any ideas on what could be done to help them along? Or if you have any experience growing outdoors, whats the scoop on flushes??

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Thanks for reporting back, looking forward to any experience report that emerges. I have some thoughts on the earth connection to the mycelial mind [pure yoghurt weaving... almost] so the fact that your grow was connected to the planet instead of fruiting in a plastic tub counts for something by my reckoning at least.

No white myc growing.

This suggests that your 'patch' completed its life cycle at sporulation and the myc died off. I hope you took some prints!

Maybe you could inoculate your compost heap with another species?

 

[○]

That's awesome to hear smoothmonkey. :thumb_up:

There's nothing like successfully fruiting your own then eating them. Most of the time ime doing that leads to incredibly profound experiences.

 

[smoothmonkey]

No prints were taken unfortunately... my mycology projects have been on hold most of the summer so I was just excited to have a nice horde to supply my spirit for a while :d although i did just noc up some plates with GT and p. Mexicana jalisco. The outdoor season is coming closer to ending and i don't forsee that I'll have any grains to inoculate the patch with. But that is OK, I'm so grateful to have home grown outdoor mush. I totally agree with you zero

so the fact that your grow was connected to the planet instead of fruiting in a plastic tub counts for something by my reckoning at least.

... next summer I will be prepared and hopefully produce a similar situation! and anyhoo, the 'dead' pile is going to be killer compost for the rest of my garden. I've never seen so many worms crawling through together!