I think Nick might have hit apon a great way to grow oyster mushrooms at Milkwood Farm – it’s a bucket full of mushrooms!
We’ve been experimenting with various techniques for growing mushrooms (mushroom bags, mushroom beds, mushroom logs) but what we’re searching for is a technique which utilizes re-usable components, is climate appropriate for our site, and yields lots of mushrooms.
Fruiting bucket’o'mushrooms in their growing location, under the loquat tree in heavy shade
On their way to the kitchen…
Nick recently hit apon the idea of using a bucket-in-a-bucket for mushroom cultivation, because we want to develop a sturdy outdoor system, with re-usable and easily accessible components, which can translate to a range of environments.
Basically, this system consists of two food-grade, identical buckets, with one lid. The inside bucket contains the substrate and mycelium, and has multiple fruiting holes drilled in it.
The outside bucket fits snugly around the inner one – providing insulation and preventing too much air (but a little) getting into the substrate while the mycelium are colonizing it.
When the substrate is fully colonised, you take the inner bucket out, stand it on the upturned outer bucket, and await the fruit (ie the mushrooms) to sprout out the holes.
Good aspects of this system:
- pre-drilled holes means you don’t have to destroy the inner bucket in order to get a flush of mushrooms.
- all the components are re-usable for many rounds of mushroom cultivation.
- the whole caboodle is robust, transportable, and slightly (every little bit counts) better insulated than thin-wall plastic mushroom bags.
- The size of the bucket means you can have lots of fruiting holes, which in turn means lots of mushrooms!
Of course, to use these, you have to already have made your grain or sawdust spawn, for which there is a how-to here. And you need your mycelium, of course.
Inside the lid of the bucket!
Oxygen-starved oyster mushrooms growing inside the lid (they have no access to fresh air in this space)…
Proud Nick with his newly devised mushroom-growing system…
Into the kitchen and ready to harvest a couple of clusters for breakfast…
The small circle is the circumference of the fruiting hole
Let’s cook it up!
Lightly sauteéd with a bit of our own olive oil, rosemary and garlic, and served with our own fresh eggs… om nom nom…
If any home-scale mushrooms growers have any thoughts on this system, we’d love to hear them!
Thanks to Will Borowski for his knowledge, his guidance and his mycelium!
If you’d like to learn comprehensive mushroom cultivation, our next course with Will is in Sydney in September, or at Milkwood Farm in October.
28 Comments
THAT is very exciting. Thank you so much for sharing the “fruits” of all of your labors. You are creative and inspiring.
Cheers! Well we’re really excited about mushroom growing, but we want to de-mystify it as much as we can, and figure out reasonably easy growing systems for those of us not in ideal mushroom growing environs…
this is absolutely fantastic thinking! I’m going to try it our here in Wisconsin ASAP. I’m going to use 5 gallon buckets, as I think 5 gallon buckets are one of the best things ever, maybe the only good use for plastic other then film for greenhouses. Thanks for thinking outside the box and inside the bucket.
Make sure they’re food grade buckets, and that you know what was in them previously!
Oh, and what do you think about using woodchips instead of sawdust? Much easier for me to produce.
The woodchips will take *much* longer to colonise than sawdust. Why not use straw?
yes, very good way to grow.
no old used bags to throw away after they’ve finished.
I’ve seen them done like this before and they do work very well.
pasteurisation of substrate is usually sufficient if you use a high enough spawning rate.
‘Punkin’, a grower in NNSW had a system like this and growing them out on metal shelves covered with clear plastic sheet under the verandah at the back of his house.
he them started to use an old glass fronted drinks fridge (rigged up with temp and humidity control etc) for growing them out.
….kgs of fresh mushies per week year round.
check out
http://www.ediblemushroom.net
http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=25506&st=0&p=271136&hl=punkin&fromsearch=1&#entry271136
http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=25388&hl=punkin&fromsearch=1
Cheers Speedy!
Your mushroom post are so inspiring. Once I have a bit more mastery with vegetables, mushrooms are next on my list.
Thanks!
Brilliant! I haven’t started with mushrooms, but I think I’n about to !
Cool! What wood is best//suitable? Can I use eucalyptus sawdust?
You could also try spent coffee grounds. I always have great luck with my mushrooms when I use that.
“two food-grade, identical buckets, with one lid”
Ummm…if they’re identical…how the heck do you fit one inside the other
The same way as anything with a tapered base…
hi, i’m interest to plan mushroom but totally no clue how to start. isn’t must grow in cool environment? i’m staying in asia, temperature always around 26-29 celsius. isn’t just need 3 things: food-grade bucket, substrate and mycelium? hmm… and the next steps are……? sorry i’m really noob in gardening.
Look back thru our mushrooms posts, lots of answers there!
wow, those look so trippy..and tempting. have you heard of the book mycelium running? how mushrooms can help save the world.
We’ll try straw and woodchips and see what happens…
Reblogged this on X_trous Notes.
I am growing Shiitake in logs using the dowels method, & I wondered if by planting some dowels amongst sterilised straw/ sawdust mix would the mycelium spread into the mix to produce mushrooms?
Reblogged this on Kim's Organic's Okc Blog.
Hi Kirsten & Nick do you think the mushrooms would mind square buckets I’ve got plenty,see you at the farm in October.PS Nick wait for me at the crossing,Regards Brian.
Wonder about BPA toxins from plastic buckets and if it can permeate mushroom and therefore be a toxic food source?
good idea you do best in oyster cultures 2 baskets one in side another
This looks like a great, low input way of growing oyster mushrooms for the kitchen. I have played around a bit in the past with mushroom growing and have recenty decided to give growing a regular supply of mushrooms for the kitchen a try. We live on a permaculture demonstration site so I want the system to fit in with our ethics.
Any idea of yields for those buckets, or how many buckets you think it would take to give a family of four a couple of meals a week?
Many thanks for any replies.
Nick
Awesome! This looks like something we could try. We tried drilling plugs into logs but it didn’t work. I’m not sure if its because it dried out or because we didn’t sterilize the logs or what. I’m going to read your other post on making the sawdust.
Reblogged this on SunnyRomy.
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