We’d love to hear about your garden, please contact us:

 

Kandice & Rodney Crusat

P.O. Box 6932

Ocean View HI 96737

(808) 929 8198

 

Email: kandicecrusat@gmail.com

or rodzukes@gmail.com

 

August 2019 - A new project!

Low Tech Mushroom Growing. No Electricity needed.

 

A mushroom growing workshop in Volcano inspired the idea of growing mushrooms in our garden. Our elevation seems perfect for them. A mushroom house was in order, as mushrooms have certain things like humidity and bugs that would be hard to control otherwise. The inside layer of the house has an insect barrier fabric to keep out nasty fungus gnats which love to lay their eggs on mushrooms.

The exterior has the “Coolaroo” brand of shade cloth which advertises 90% UV reduction, but also lets the air flow through, which is important for developing mushrooms. The size is 10’ x 9’ x 6’ high.

 

This photo was taken mid-morning and you cannot see into the interior.

Inside we have 4 shelving units. Each has 5 shelves. We have the fruiting shelves wrapped with a clear shower curtain to keep in the humidity. It has openings on two sides for ventilation. There is a large pan of water on the bottom shelf to create even more humidity.

 

There is black shade cloth on the top of the shelves to keep out harmful sun rays. On top of the black shade cloth we have a thick clear vinyl to keep off the rain. Mushrooms don’t like to be wet when it rains a lot. This has worked out well.

 

The earthen floor is covered with Hawaiian cinders, which are kind of like pearlite. The cinders are watered down every morning. As the water slowly evaporates from the cinder, it creates humidity. So far the humidity stays around 80°F  and the temperature has been between 68°F - 74°F during the day. Perfect for growing mushrooms!

We have started a variety of mushrooms, on a variety of substrates, to see which one would be the best for our growing conditions. So far we have tried White, Pink, Yellow and Blue Oyster Mushrooms, as well as Shiitake and King Trumpet. We used pasteurized straw, wood pellets, cardboard and planting them right in our garden beds. The organic grain spawn came from:

Aloha Medicinal.  A nice company with a large selection. They also carry supplements and are based in Las Vegas Nevada. Read my Mushroom Growing Blog for more information on our substrates and how we are mixing them.

 

 

An experiment in one of our garden beds is to see how the mushrooms would grow with vegetables. We dug out some of the dirt and lined the area with clean cardboard, then a piece of burlap, then blue oyster inoculated in wood pellets, with pasteurized straw on top. We have this covered with black shade cloth. So far it is working, but there has been something nibbling on some of them (slugs probably) and I have had scarid fly larvae on some too.

 

 

This photo was taken in our forest on a decaying Koa branch. It has been identified as Favolaschia Calocera or Orange Pore fungus. There are thousands of these tiny little guys eating up a fallen Koa tree. They are pretty and dainty, but also an invasive fungus in Hawaii.

 

 

 

Left: Growing next to the Orange Pore above, is this one. It was identified as some type of Primordium fungus.

 

These both appeared after a lot of heavy rain.

 

 

 

 

Right and below: An unidentified fungus growing on a live Black Waddle Acacia. It is coming out of every crack and crevice on this tree. Each growth is unique, beautiful and interesting in it’s own way. At first I thought it might be the Chaga fungus, but now we don’t think so.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside the mushroom house on the opposite side (left) we have shelving completely covered with shade cloth for the incubation part of mushroom growing.

 

This has worked out well so far too.

 

It’s quite roomy feeling inside and the four shelving units have lots of space around them. These photos were all taken mid-morning without flash.

Also from the Volcano workshop, this Hawaiian Koa log was inoculated with Shiitake sawdust spawn in August 2019. It was supposed to start fruiting in Sept of 2020, but in October of 2019 these interesting little mushrooms emerged. So far we don’t know what they are.

Here’s a large one close up. The surface texture is fuzzy and the edges are scalloped.

 

The Koa log and the Koa wood shavings that were used at the workshop both had these wild mushroom already colonized in them.

 

Neither the Shiitake or the King Stropharia overcame this wild variety.

Seen from beneath, they  seem to have little feet where they touch the log.

I partially buried some spent substrate from white oyster mushrooms grown in pasteurized straw. I dug a shallow hole right into one of our vegetable beds next to some broccoli that was already growing. About 3 weeks later I was surprised to find these one morning. The spent substrate is good compost for garden beds and the additional mushrooms are a benefit. The mushrooms were quite dirty though and needed a good washing.

This is another interesting experiment to the right. We used a common seedling grow tray without the little soil dividers. This is the kind carried by all garden centers and has the thin and flimsy, plastic lid. We used Blue Oyster grain spawn on pasteurized cardboard  as a substrate. It took a month before the cardboard was fully colonized.

Then we added a casing layer on top of the colonized substrate. We used G & B Soil Building Conditioner which lists as ingredients: recycled forest products, arbor fines, composted chicken manure, gypsum, oyster shell & dolomite limes (as pH adjusters), vermicompost, bat guano, kelp meal, Mycorrhizae.

 

Since we use this product in our vegetable garden beds with good results, I thought it would be a perfect substrate for mushroom growing. I was worried about it molding, but so far it has worked fine. The little beauties are plentiful and look healthy.

Pink Oyster -

Pleurotus Salmoneostramineus

 

This mushroom likes straw and warmer  weather (64-86F).

 

We used pasteurized straw in plastic bags. To pasteurized the straw we used a hydrolyzed lime bath for 18 hours.

Blue Oyster - Pleurotus Ostreatus 

 

We grew this one in a tray with good results and also tried it in a garden bed, (see below for more information). Both did really well.

 

Good for outdoors in the garden beds.

White Oyster - Pleurotus Ostreatus

 

We used pasteurized straw in plastic bags. To pasteurized the straw we used a hydrolyzed lime bath for 18 hours. They did really well.

 

Good for outdoors in the garden beds.

 

Yellow Oyster - Pleurotus Citrinopileatus

 

This mushroom likes wood, so we used a Hickory mix of wood pellets. We soaked the wood pellets in water for 30 minutes beforehand and they were not pasteurized.

 

Only one of the bags fruited and only once before it started to mold. The other started to mold soon after it started pinning. Next time we will try to pasteurize the wood pellets in a Hydrolyzed lime bath instead of plain water.

These like warmer weather (64-86F).

 

One of the bags of straw substrate; Pink Oysters, started molding after the first flush, so I buried it in the same bed with the White Oyster above. A week or so later these little cuties appeared on the very top. We also buried the Yellow Oyster that had started to mold in another bed, but nothing has come up yet.

Astraeus hygrometricus or commonly known as the hygroscopic earthstar or the barometer earthstar.

 

These interesting little guys appeared after a good day of rain. They are growing under the Black Waddle Acacia, under the same tree as the tree fungus above.

 

For more interesting information about these mushrooms see the Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astraeus_hygrometricus

 

 

I started using fly paper to catch the little sciarid flies that started to get into the mushroom house. It has worked really well. I used two if them by Black Flag: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Flag-Paper-Insect-4-Count/dp/B00AA8X18U . I might try these in the mushroom beds in the garden too and other garden areas where it’s hard to spray. Like the black berry bushes and cannabis.

So far we have gotten two flushes from this tray. The second one started about 1 week after the first one finished. We really like how this little Blue Oyster mushroom produces so plentifully.

Above: The mycelium is growing above ground right into the mushroom. They are so interesting to watch the changes every day.

Shiitake - Lentinula Edodes

 

We grew these little cuties on

Hydrated, un-pasteurized hickory wood pellets. These infant Shiitake are so sweet.

 

 

Photos copyright by Kandice Crusat

Pink Oyster mushroom in grow bags and the Sterlite containers we are using. This photo was taken 11 days after inoculating. The substrate is mostly straw, with some wood pellet sawdust and additional cardboard in the Sterlite container.

 

We are using large grow bags with 0.2 micron filters and Sterilite containers which are
24” x 18” x 7”. We will probably use mainly the Sterilite containers later on, as they are
re-useable.

Shiitake mushroom in grow bags and the Sterilite containers we are using. This photo was taken 11 days after inoculating. The substrate is wood pellets, wood chips, straw and cardboard. There is no cardboard in the grow bag mixture. The wood loving mushrooms are much slower growing than the straw loving mushrooms.

 

 

The following are wild mushrooms and fungi from our forest:

King Trumpet - Pleurotus Eryngii

 

These took a bit longer to fruit than the straw based oyster mushrooms, but they were worth the wait.

 

These are wood loving mushrooms and we gave them a mix of wood pellets, wood chips and straw.

King Stropharia - At the Volcano workshop we each got 2 bags of King Stropharia starters. After the first colonization on Koa wood chips, I transferred them to a garden bed where we had dug out some of the dirt and lined the area with clean cardboard. Then we added a piece of burlap, Garden & Bloom and then the colonized King Stropharia spawn. We finished it with another layer of Garden & Bloom. We covered the bed with a black shade cloth.

 

We watered it down about once or twice a week and almost 6 months later the tiny pins started coming up. 

Agaricus - We were wondering what a smell was along our driveway. Then these appeared after a good week of rain during the summer. They are known for their almond extract smell.

Battarraea - phalloides - These have come up from time to time. Now a days there are quite a few along one of our trails growing out of the red cinder.

Identity unknown - There is a lot of cat poo where this mushroom popped up, so it must like manure.

Rigidoporus - Microporus- We have an experiment in a small ravine near a Koa tree in the forest. Several cardboard boxes are filled with more cardboard and paper and used mushroom King Trumpet substrate. About 6 months into it, these mushrooms came out of the side of one of the boxes.

Polyporus - Arcularius - These pretty little guys

were growing on an old Ohia log next to an Anna

apple tree.

Scrambled Egg-Fungus - Fuligo Septica - This weird fungus was covering an old pile of Ohia and Koa branches. It was there one day and gone the next.

Morchella or Morel - One autumn morning in 2020, we couldn’t believe our eyes when we spotted a Morel mushroom growing along the garden stairs. These are rare in Hawaii and very out of season. It was a sign from the Mushroom Goddess that we are on the right track with our mushroom growing.