Columns the next several weeks will bring ideas to keep youngsters busy and may even increase their vocabulary.
Today’s activity is straight out of a horror flick—adding intrigue to their summer. Growing mushrooms!
I say straight out of a horror flick because the first time I visited a facility that grew mushrooms commercially, I walked into a dark, windowless, cement structure with what looked like body bags hanging from the ceiling in neat rows. I felt like I had walked into Robin Cook’s thriller “Coma.”
It was a mushroom nursery. But for youngsters (and adults) growing mushrooms doesn’t have to be spooky.
A mushroom crop doesn’t need much space. Mushrooms are in their own taxonomic Kingdom, Fungi, totally separate from Animalia and Plantae Kingdoms. Mushrooms are classified as a vegetable by USDA as they provide nutrition found in vegetables.
USDA nutrition facts: one cup of mushrooms provides 15 calories, 2.2g protein, 2.3g carbohydrates, 0.2g fat; high in vitamin D, niacin (B3), pantothenic acid (B5), riboflavin (B6); copper, iron, phosphorous, potassium and selenium; fiber (verywellfit.com).
There are 18 kinds of edible mushrooms, so choose the right one. Oyster mushrooms grow quickly from grain spawn (seed material) and are easy to cultivate.
Get a plastic bucket with a tight-fitting lid; drill two rows of 3-inch-diameter holes at 2-inch spacings around the perimeter; drill several drain holes in the bottom. Collect substrate; straw works well for oysters. Sterilize both bucket and straw by soaking in boiling water. Cool and dry both. Collect spawn, available from northspore. com, liquidfungi.com, or kits from Amazon.com or Williams Sonoma.
Inoculation: Thoroughly and evenly mix spawn into the substrate with sterile hands.
Incubation: Locate a sheltered, closed environment with no direct light to facilitate mycelia growth, as it spreads throughout the substrate; mycelium growth may take a few days or a few weeks. Maintain temperatures between 65°F and 80°F, and humidity between 80% and 95%.
Fruiting: To trigger fruiting initiation, lower temperatures to between 60°F and 70°F with no direct light.
Harvesting: Allow mushroom caps to fully develop, maybe 5 to 7 days after they poke out of the holes. With sterile hands reach under, twist and pull clumps free.
Disclaimer: NEVER gather mushrooms found in the wild for the table unless they are verified as not toxic when consumed. Some mushrooms are deadly poisonous. Some information from cornell.edu
Ellen Peffley Harp, a retired professor of horticulture at Texas Tech University, writes about gardening for several Texas newspapers.
