Urban Farm-It's Webb tells us how to grow a healthy, sustainable crop that doesn't take up much space.
Mushrooms have a reputation for being hard to grow. But there's plenty of reasons to try, including the save money, for the environment and for fun, and Webb shows you how.
Recent research has made exotic varieties easier to grow. Mushrooms grow outside so it can't be that hard but this is not like gardening and sticking a seed or bulb in the ground and hoping for the best.
You need liquid spawn and a spawn material such as grain. Sterilise in a container. Inoculate and incubate.
To grow, put a material such as straw in a container. Sterilise the lot and mix in the spawn. Incubate, allow to fruit with light and water then harvest.
One thing I'd have liked to have read more about was peat, which almost all commercially-grown mushrooms are grown in. This is problematic for environmentalists and the likes of the National Trust and there is little to choose from in bulk that is grown peat-free.
Usefully, Webb provides step-by-step guides, because with dozens of species all requiring different requirements. this is a more complex area of growing than most. There is a lot of information on lore, kit, uses and even psychedelics.
Principles are hygiene, develop and monitor the mycellum in a consistent way, keep damp and warm in indirect light and to remember mushrooms aren't plants so don't treat them like them.
