How to Grow Mushrooms Outdoors on logs, wood chips or straw (2024)

FAQs

How to Grow Mushrooms Outdoors on logs, wood chips or straw? ›

Break up your bag of Oyster spawn - grain or sawdust will do just fine. Put down a solid layer of straw as the base of your bed. Sprinkle spawn evenly over the straw, crumbling any big chunks you find. Repeat as many times as you want!

These days, growing mushrooms is all the rage.

It is extremely simple, and they will grow pretty much anywhere — from milk cartons to denim to the always-reliable woodchip. The following is an excerpt from The Woodchip Handbook by Ben Raskin.

Straw bags (or buckets) are a common way of cultivating gourmet mushrooms. The benefits of straw is that it has a quick turnaround, in some cases producing the first crop within two or three weeks of being made.

Common mulches that are used are woodchips, straw, shredded leaves, and pine mulch. For mushrooms, it's mostly hardwood woodchips and straw that are used. Winecap is one of the easiest mushrooms to cultivate outdoors. Other names for it are King Stropharia and Garden Giant.

Leave the wood chips to soak overnight or longer so that they can get sufficiently softened, pasteurized and have a chance to completely cool off. Adding grain spawn to piping-hot chips will likely kill off the mycelium, so ensure it is cool to the touch. You'll also want to drain off the excess water.

Species: The preferred species for cultivation include sugar maple (Acer saccharum), all oak species (Quercus spp.), American beech (fa*gus grandifolia), ironwood (Carpinus caroliniana), hop hornbeam (Ostrya virginiana), and birch (Betula spp).

Sawdust spawn has the advantage when it comes to spawn run time (time until full colonization). Grain particles are larger, and although they cover a larger surface area individually, there are not as many inoculation points as there are when sawdust is sprinkled throughout the straw.

Spray-and-grow kits, a block of colonized substrate inside a small box, make for the easiest way for beginners to get started. “They're inexpensive. You get a lot of mushrooms out of them. And they're super easy,” says Lynch.

Outdoors on Logs – Shiitake

Shiitake mushrooms grown on logs outdoors is one of the easiest mushrooms for beginners to learn the cycles of mushroom production.

Most mushrooms on standard size logs in temperate climates will take about a year to fully colonize before they fruit. This can vary between 6 months to two years. Smaller diameter logs and soft hardwoods will typically fruit sooner, though they'll have less longevity.

Can I use old logs for mushrooms? ›

Using Logs

Cherry and ash should be avoided, as should all conifers. Logs must be relatively fresh, cut from live trees and used within several weeks to no more than several months of cutting. The best time to cut logs is while trees are dormant, either late fall or early spring.

Let the wood chips soak in cold water overnight (12-18h). Use as much water until all the chips are floating. Put the soaked wood chips in to a sieve and let drain for around 15 minutes.

The casing layer does not need to contain nutrients, as the fruiting body is produced entirely from the mycelium which is getting nutrients from the first compost layer. Look for a clay-loam soil or mix soil and sawdust (this is a step that will vary depending on species of mushroom).

While many poisonous mushrooms grow on trees and rotting wood, that alone is not what makes them poisonous. In fact, many highly sought-after edible wild mushrooms grow on trees such as oyster mushrooms, chicken of the woods, and sh*take mushrooms.

In conclusion: Yes, you can grow a vegetable garden mulched with wood chips without nitrogen problems! If you have access to composted wood chips or have allowed your fresh wood chips to compost in place for at least 3-6 months before planting a garden, you will not not need to add nitrogen for most plants.