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I've googled a bit and found some horribly complicated instructions involving sterilisation and and very scientific equipment.

Is there a simple way? I've got some well rotted horse manure and a warm dark place but wonder what sort of container I should use. Also I've seen some seeds in homebase but should I be buying mycelium online?

Any advice appreciated.

From what I understand, unless you have a temperature-controlled environment which you can flood with carbon dioxide for a hour or so, it's a very hitty-missy thing to try. Interesting, no doubt, but not to be depended upon. However, best wait for a reply from someone else who has actually tried it recently.

Mike

Hi SeasideGirl, it might be worth phoning Wilderness Wood not far from you - they were doing a day course i think i saw where you can go watch them innoculate some logs with the spores. I just looked on their website and it seems the owners retired and it is now run by their daughter i think - the course no longer appears on their website, this time of year anyway, but it may be worth a phone call. Good luck.

Thanks. That does look like a lovely place to visit so I'll pop up there and ask one dayl Perhaps if I remember when the bluebells are flowering.

Anyway I brought some of the dried mushroom seeds yesterday (£3.49) and am going to have a go according to the instructions. They say the horse manure mixed with straw is required and mine has obviously come from stables who used straw for bedding so that's handy. It's well rotted too. I've got two possible growing places so will try a bit in each. Even temperatures are going to be tricky as my shed and conservatory both get pretty cold at night. Will try wrapping my boxes up in something.

Will report back results. I do buy mushrooms all the time so have everything crossed. Cheers.

Good luck seasidegirl - I hope yours work better than mine!

I bought a seed packet of spores, did everything right, but the flippin' things just won't work.

On the other hand, my neighbour had some spent mushroom compost delivered and ended up with loads of mushrooms growing at the edge of her veggie plot!

I've tried several times and failed on every attempt Sorry, but my advice would be to not waste your money.

I'm not sure but I have the feeling that trying to grow them indoors in boxes is creating problems for yourself. Probably it can be done but the conditions have to be perfect (all the time).

In the past mushrooms were grown outside in long heaps of rotting horse manure. Perhaps the modern method of growing them indoors is more productive, but it requires a control of temperature, humidity and alkalinity that the average person can't achieve.

Useful feedback but not putting me off as i like a challenge. I've put them in a bucket under a shelf in the conservatory (which has a brick base) and is south facing. Today, amazingly we actually have sun so its warm.
Tonight is another matter but i've put the bucket in a coal sack inside a sainsburys jute bag.

Funny thing is that this conservatory is extremely old and a bit ramshackle. There is a leak in one corner which has actually caused toadstools to grow in the old carpet. Maybe the atmosphere is conducive to fungi?

I've got an old gardening book from about 1910 which was my granddad's bible. I'll look up how they used to do it.

It's funny to see that people from other countries use the same slang as you do in your own country. I was surprised to see the word "flippin" used as we do in the US or at least in my area of the country. I think mushrooms are very hard to grow. Someone local here sells "mushroom logs" It is a small log that they have drilled holes into and "infused" the spores into it. It looks like glue in the holes. My sister bought me and my dad one that is Shitake and I have had it since last summer and NOTHING!!! No instructions came with it, they just told my sister to keep it damp and in the shade. Well it is hard to keep a piece of wood damp all the time. So I put it in an empty pot that doesn't have drain holes, hoping the water would wick up the log and keep it damp. I am not sure how long they take to grow but after 9 months, I would think that something would be growing.

By the way, I LOVE this forum!

Lisa Messer

Buy some organic, peat free, recycled potting compost and soak it well. Three quarters fill some loo roll innerds.

Plant some vegetable seeds (any type it doesn't matter) in the potting compost.

Cover and leave for a week.

You should have a lovely crop of baby mushrooms, then put a piccy here and someone will identify them for you.

If you're very lucky you might have a couple of your seedlings come up as well but don't count on it.

Zoe

Let us know how you get on, I've tried a couple of those commercial box type kits with very little success unfortunately, good luck

I was reading 'A Mushroom Miscellany' yesterday by Patrick Harding and apparently there's a big (really massive) increase in mushrooms in people's gardens because of the relatively new use of wood bark chippings as pathways and mulch etc. They love it.... Don't know if that's useful... The other interesting thing that might be useful is that they don't need it to be dark to grow merrily.

Let us know how you get on...

Thanks everybody for all the tips. It's interesting that they don't need to be in the dark. I remember that my dad used to go off on early morning country rambles on our summer holidays and come back with a bag of mushrooms.

He picked them in open fields which obviously weren't dark but otoh he did go at dawn so I'm now wondering if they only popped up in the night. If he hadn't picked them would they have gone away when the sun got on them?
Been eaten by something else?

I've put my bucket under a shelf in conservatory to keep them dark but that is actually the coldest place. I cd put them on top of shelf which is warmer during day and still dark at night.

I suppose the trick wd be to do both places and see.