Growing Mushrooms Outdoor

Outdoor Mushroom Growing

Growing mushrooms outdoors can be a huge challenge – much more than growing them indoors, with the help of a mushroom growing kit. However, if you can afford spending the time and the money, the rewards and the return of the endeavour will be much more than indoor mushroom cultivation.

What is the advantage of outdoor mushroom growing?

Since you will be growing mushrooms outdoor, you will use natural hardwood log for the growth, instead of the growing material provided in the kit. This will help you to harvest much larger quantity of mushroom, as well as for longer periods. 

What is even better is that, just after a single inoculation of spores in the hardwood, it will go on to produce mushrooms for years. All these means, you can reap the befit of your efforts for a very long time. 

Choosing the species and the growing medium

A number of mushrooms can be grown on wood chips, thus making them suitable for outdoor mushroom farming. Morels and composter mushrooms can be easily grown outdoors and great for you to experiment with, if you are a beginner.

You can also choose to grow shiitake mushrooms, as they are quite easy to grow too. Remember that before you choose a species to grow, you should find the growing requirements and the life cycle of the mushroom. Since different mushrooms thrive in different environments, you should be aware of these factors too – while some mushrooms need live compost, some mushrooms like shiitake prefer logs and trees.

Next, you will have to locate the source of the hardwood, which will be used to inoculate the mushroom spawns. The size of the branches should range from three to six foot and must be cut during late winter from live trees. 

It is also important that you choose a shady place for growing the mushrooms, as they need a moist and dark place to grow. If you are planning to grow morels, you should choose an area under a maple, apple, oak, ash or elm tree. You can inoculate your hardwood by inserting small wooden dowels that have been infused with the help of mushroom spawns. 

Growing mushrooms on compost

Once you have chosen the right shady spot to grow mushrooms, use a shovel to loosen up the top two inches of the garden area and then make the area even. Thereafter, you will have to mix the fresh hardwood chips with the mushroom spores. As a guideline, you should be using about 1 pound of the woodchips for per 8 square feet. You can now spread this mixed hardwood over the area where you want to grow your mushrooms. Keep the area moist at all times, especially during hot and dry weather. Remember that mushrooms require a dark and humid environment to grow and since they are being grown outdoors, you will have to take extra care to maintain the ideal growing conditions.