Do you love mushrooms, but don't have time to pick them? Don’t worry, start growing mushrooms in your dacha yourself. The main thing is to know how to do it correctly in order to get a guaranteed harvest.
Growing mushrooms in the country is convenient because you can control this process, creating the most favorable conditions for their growth. And what about in the forest: there was a dry summer, and then early frosts of the soil and that’s it - there will be no harvest of forest mushrooms! If you don’t want to depend on the vagaries of nature, feel free to try growing mushroom plantations on your site.
Methods of growing mushrooms
To get a great harvest, it is important to properly breed mushrooms at home. There are several options:
- Planting mycelium. A special seed preparation is purchased. You need to make a hole on the site. Sawdust and leaves are placed at the bottom. The package with seeds indicates the area that needs to be sown with fungal spores. The seeds are taken out of the package, mixed with a special growth activator, as well as nutritious soil (chernozem). After sowing, the mycelium must be thoroughly watered, covering the soil with fallen leaves.
- Planting mushroom seedlings. Pieces of mushrooms are soaked in water for a day and then planted in the ground. This method is suitable for growing wild mushrooms. The seedlings are introduced into the soil under the tree. It is watered generously with the same water in which the mushroom pieces were soaked.
- Transplanting a tree with mycelium in the roots. A suitable specimen must be found in the forest. This method is labor-intensive and therefore rarely used.
For beginners, it is better to choose the first method. Over time, you will be able to try other techniques.
Granular oiler - growing on site
This mushroom is very convenient to propagate by transplanting the mycelium.
If you notice a couple of small pines with a constant harvest of boletus mushrooms, you can safely transplant the mushrooms to your plot. Remember, boletus prefers lime-rich soils and indirect sunlight. The mycelium tolerates transplantation quite comfortably and takes root well. With regular watering (you need to water it especially generously in dry weather), after 3-4 years the first mushrooms will appear and will delight you with abundant fruiting throughout the season - every three weeks, starting in mid-May.
Country boletus is almost not susceptible to attacks by worms, and the size of their caps can reach 10 cm.
Optimal conditions
Regardless of which method you choose to grow mushrooms, it is important to provide optimal conditions for the crops. The main requirements are the following:
- Mycelium should be planted in open ground from April to September.
- A suitable place on the site should be in dense shade.
- In the spring, a growth activator is added to the soil.
- The mycelium should be planted early in the morning or in the evening after sunset.
- You cannot plant mushrooms closer than 50 cm from the tree trunk.
- When the mycelium begins to actively grow, it needs to be watered abundantly.
Care
Mushroom colonies require minimal care - you just need to make sure the soil is moist. For tree varieties, spraying is required. In spring, it is advisable to add a growth activator to the soil. If you used purchased mycelium, care instructions are usually printed on the packaging.
Loosening the soil is not allowed, as it can damage the mycelium. This causes difficulties if, for example, champignons are grown in a garden with zucchini or cucumbers, which require light loosening. To avoid unnecessary intervention, the beds should be mulched.
Caring for mycelium involves daily watering for the first two weeks and in dry weather. A hose with a special spray nozzle or a watering can with a cutting device is used.
Further reduction in watering depends on the weather, but for normal growth of mycelium, on average, no less than a standard bucket of water is needed for each mushroom family weekly.
It is recommended to use coffee grounds as a fertilizer for mushrooms, because they are an excellent growth stimulator. In addition, it can not only increase the growth rate of mushrooms, but also protect the mushroom plot from mold and various diseases and insect pests.
The remainder of the aromatic drink should be mixed with 15 percent natural ground coffee and enriched with a mineral complex. Fertilizer consumption for mushrooms is 50 grams per square meter.
Oyster mushrooms
This mushroom can even be grown indoors, for example in a garage, cellar, basement. The harvest can be harvested all year round. The room is pre-treated with a four percent lime solution. It is closed for 2 days and then ventilated until the smell disappears completely.
There should be two rooms in the room. In the first one the mycelium will germinate, and in the second one the mushrooms should be grown.
Now we need to prepare the ground. It may consist of sawdust, sunflower seed husks, ground corn cobs, and straw. You will also need to add one or more types of compost here. The soil mixture is soaked in warm water for 30 minutes. The liquid is drained and the substrate is squeezed out. Then it is poured with boiling water for 7 hours and left under pressure. Then the liquid is drained again and the soil is squeezed out. Limestone, gypsum, superphosphate and urea are added to it.
The finished wet substrate is poured into a plastic bag, in which small holes with a diameter of about 2 cm are made. A distance of approximately 20 cm is maintained between them. Mushrooms will grow through these holes.
The soil must be poured into the bags in a certain order. First, make a 15-20 cm layer of nutritious, moist soil. Mycelium is laid out on it, which should fill the space of the bag by 2/3. He is tied up and taken to the first room. It is best to hang the bags from the ceiling, but you can also arrange them in rows.
The temperature in this room should be approximately 24°C. In this case, the temperature in the bags should reach 28°C. The air should be very humid, almost 95%. Mushrooms sprout in the dark.
Myceliums need to be ventilated periodically. As soon as the mycelium begins to germinate, the bags are transferred to the second room. Here you need to provide a sufficient amount of oxygen. The humidity should be as high as in the first room, but the temperature decreases. It ranges from 12 to 18°C.
In the second room, artificial lighting is created (fluorescent lamp). Daylight hours should last 12 hours. When the mushrooms begin to sprout, the holes need to be widened. 8 days after the first small oyster mushrooms appear, the first harvest can be harvested.
Champignon
These mushrooms require virtually no sunlight to germinate. They are also undemanding, like oyster mushrooms, and can even grow near fruit trees. An important condition for growing champignons is the use of soil rich in organic components.
To prepare the soil mixture, you need to prepare 12 kg of gypsum and lime, 50 kg of cow or horse manure, 20 kg of straw. The ingredients are thoroughly mixed to form a pile. It is watered with water and compacted tightly. The mixture is covered with plastic wrap, leaving it for 2-3 weeks. The ammonia smell should completely disappear.
Now you need to dig a trench 30 cm deep. It is filled with the prepared substrate. The soil is watered with plenty of water. The mycelium is placed in a trench. It is covered with straw. The ambient temperature should be around 20°C.
The soil on which the mycelium grows is moistened, but not compacted. The harvest can be harvested in just 2 months.
Harvest rules and terms
Despite the fact that it is quite difficult to obtain a high yield of wild mushrooms when grown in home gardening conditions, it is nevertheless possible to maintain fruiting only if optimal cultivation conditions are created and the rules for collecting fruiting bodies are observed:
- the first harvest is formed after the soil temperature rises to 1°C, and the grass cover has not yet reached its full strength;
- It is best to collect mushrooms in the early morning, when there is dew, or in cloudy weather, with drizzling rain;
- You should not wait for the fruiting body to outgrow, since young specimens of mushrooms have the greatest nutritional value and high quality.
Porcini
There are several methods for growing porcini mushrooms. But it’s better to start this work after trying to grow oyster mushrooms or champignons. Porcini mushroom is grown using the following methods:
- transfer;
- planting the finished material;
- seedling.
This procedure is performed from May to October. Work is carried out only after sunset.
Before planting this mushroom in the soil, it is advisable to disinfect it. This will avoid the death of the mycelium due to harmful microorganisms that may be in the soil. A simple recipe is used for disinfection.
You need to brew strong black tea. To do this, pour 100 g of tea leaves into a liter of boiling water. When the tea has steeped and cooled, water the soil with it.
You can also use oak bark for these purposes. 30 g of dry material is poured into a liter of water and boiled for an hour. The evaporated volume of liquid must be periodically topped up. This product is also used to water the soil after the infusion has cooled.
Practical advice
To ensure that your hard work bears fruit and the efficiency of cultivating edible forest mushrooms is maximized, adhere to the following recommendations:
It is better to collect young fruiting bodies for sowing without cutting off the stalk, but by removing them entirely from the ground with roots. When choosing mushrooms for further cultivation, pay attention to the mother tree under which they grow. The mushrooms collected must be healthy. To make the mycelium take root better, you can add a little alcohol (4 tablespoons per bucket) or sugar (45–50 g) to the aqueous solution with mushrooms. Process collected mushrooms no later than 10 hours after they are collected
Sowing the material should be done the next day. Only fresh fruiting bodies are cultivated; frozen mushrooms are not suitable for cultivation. Before planting, it is necessary to clean the soil prepared for mycelium from pathogenic microflora, disinfecting it with a disinfectant solution based on oak bark or black tea. The mycelium should be planted at a distance of about 0.5 m from the trees. To avoid drying out of the mycelium, the planting site should be chosen in the shade with a high humidity coefficient.
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Transfer
If you decide to grow mushrooms by transplanting, you need to dig up the mycelium and then plant it in the ground where deciduous or coniferous trees or shrubs grow. You need to dig up planting material from the same tree where you plan to plant the porcini mushroom.
In front of the selected tree, at a distance of 50 cm from the trunk, you need to dig a hole 30 cm deep. Fallen leaves and sawdust are laid down. A layer of soil is poured onto them, on which the dug mycelium is planted. The soil is watered abundantly. The top of the spores should be covered with leaves. Watering is carried out in the first 2-3 weeks.
Recommendations for selection
By following some basic tips, you can achieve a good harvest very quickly. The main thing is to strictly follow the necessary instructions regarding the selection of key points.
View
Among the huge variety of mushrooms, you need to decide which ones to plant. As the experience of many gardeners shows, the most popular are:
- White (boletus).
- Oyster mushrooms.
- Milk mushrooms.
- Butter.
- Honey mushrooms.
- Boletus mushrooms.
- Boletuses (redheads).
- Saffron milk caps.
- Champignon.
It is these species that have shown themselves to be the most successful options for adaptation for cultivation on a summer cottage.
Find out more: How to grow honey mushrooms in the country
A real giant - a raincoat round like a ball - is often found in gardens or vegetable gardens in the regions of our country. Having discovered it, it is worth observing this place. As a rule, other instances will appear later.
Place
It is necessary to study in advance the characteristics of the species and favorable conditions for its growth. It is believed that for reproduction and good growth it is necessary to create areas as similar as possible to forest conditions.
The trees (stumps, logs) under which the sowing will be carried out are also important. It is known that the qualitative development and growth of the mycelium occurs with its constant interaction with the roots. For example, boletus mushrooms love spruce, porcini mushrooms love soil with pine needles, and grow under pine trees. Birch logs are suitable for oyster mushrooms, and apple orchards are suitable for morels. Aspen boletuses, as the name suggests, are associated with aspen, but are also found next to birch trees.
Forest species cannot be planted under fruit trees (apple trees, pears). It is better to choose those species in which they grow in the forest.
A mandatory factor is fertile and moist soil with shading near the building or trunks, the distance to which is at least 0.5 - 1.0 m.
It is also worth taking into account that the mushroom bed must be located at a certain distance from the main garden with vegetables and berries.
Substrate
The soil on which it is planned to grow mushrooms is one of the important factors that ensures their nutrition. Simply sowing mycelium in the garden like vegetable crops and waiting for the harvest is not suitable. The following species are considered ideal substrates:
- forest litter;
- various plant wastes;
- humus soils;
- wood;
- sawdust;
- needles;
- fallen leaves.
Later, during sowing, it is recommended to introduce special growth activator preparations, which must be used only in accordance with the attached instructions.
Terrain, climate
Weather conditions are less important than for various plants, however, agronomists recommend choosing species that are characteristic of growing in forests, steppes or meadows of each individual region.
Deadlines
The best period for planting is considered to be the beginning of spring, at which time the snow has already melted and the earth is warming up. In the heat, the habituation and adaptation of the mycelium will be worse, and spring rains and abundant moisture will help it quickly take root in a new place.
In order to grow wild mushrooms in the country, you need to be guided by the natural timing of their ripening. For example, when independently preparing planting material for species such as boletus and boletus, you need to focus on June or September. These dates depend annually on what the summer was like.
Sowing should be done on a cool, cloudy day in the morning or in the evening.
Some gardeners say that you can sow mycelium all season from spring to autumn (May - September), depending on weather conditions. If the summer turned out to be cool and rainy, you can safely begin planning site preparation and planting.
Planting the finished material
Porcini mushroom mycelium can also be purchased at a specialty store. They also choose a place for it near a tree. It must be damp and dark here. Stepping back 70 cm from the trunk, make a hole. Its depth is 50 cm. A mixture of sawdust, leaves and soil is laid out at the bottom. The layer thickness is 20 cm. Next, a 10 cm thick layer of soil is poured, and compost is placed on it.
Now you can plant mycelium. It is sprinkled with earth and leaves. Under favorable conditions, the first harvest will be possible next year.
What do you need to know?
First, you need to decide on the type of mushrooms you want to enjoy. Depending on this, you may need a basement or an area. You can use cuttings from old trees. For example, you can grow oyster mushrooms on them.
What mushrooms are is the fruiting part of the mycelium, which grows only due to the fact that with its “roots” it entangles the substrate that feeds it. Mushrooms will grow quickly if growing conditions are close to ideal. And each type of mushroom needs its own environment.
So, champignons do not like light, but rows do not grow without it. Porcini mushrooms grow only next to mature trees.
Seedling
There is another way to grow porcini mushroom in your area. You need to bring the caps of this plant from the forest. They are finely chopped or grated. You can pass the prepared material through a meat grinder.
The gruel is poured with water and left for a day. Now you need to choose the right place for planting the prepared material.
The soil under the selected tree needs to be dug up. Compost is added here. When the pulp is infused in water, it is poured onto the prepared soil. This place is covered with leaves.
These simple tips will help you grow your favorite varieties of mushrooms. If there are several trees on the site, you can grow a real mushroom clearing. It will be a pleasure to relax here. If desired, you can grow them in a greenhouse or suitable room. Mushrooms can be collected all year round for yourself or even for sale.
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