Stamets is the founder and guiding light of Fungi Perfecti (fungi.com) in Washington State. In 2012, I grew shitakes in my basement with a kit (spore infused wood chip block) from Fungi Perfecti - a gift from my wife. I grew a couple other shitake blocks and a oyster mushroom block with blocks that came from Billy Webb's Sheltowee Farm in Eastern KY. Here's a shitake block growing:
Here's the oysters growing:
Here's Billy Webb, the mushroom man himself, in 2013 with a fine selection of mushrooms. Blocks are on the right.
Billy quit coming to that farmer's market, and I haven't seen him for a few years. He still delivers to restaurants in Lexington, Louisville, and Cincinnati. He was supposed to take me out foraging the forest around his farm down in the Danial Boone National Forest some autumn, but that never happened. I should prolly track him down - maybe I'll just text him a link to this post.
The book was an xmas gift from my middle daughter, soon to be a landscape architect. I think this book has a lot of useful information for her field, so I think it will go back to her - but my friend Fuzzy wants to borrow it first.
Part 1 (4 chapters) is titled "The Mycelial Mind". It introduces us to fungal networks. Stamets points out that these networks, which can become huge, can resemble the large scale structure of the universe, as shown below. I don't know that this means much, but I had already used this pic in the blog, and it's a neat pic, so here it is again ;->
Stamets reviews the many medical uses of mushrooms. A lot of these were early stage research, and I don't remember hearing about any new mushroom-based cancer cures in the 14 years since the book's publication. It would be nice to have an update, maybe I'll check their website.
Part II (4 chapters) is titled "Mycorestoration". This is really interesting stuff. Stamets divides this topic into 4 subtopics:
- Mycofiltration. Mushrooms are particularly effective at filtering farm waste before it gets back into the watershed.
- Mycoforestry. He favors chipping waste wood in forests such that it makes contact with the ground where the mycelia can infuse and digest it - particularly as an alternative to burning the waste wood. The right mycelia act as an extension to a tree's root system, providing it with increased water, nutrients, and hence growth. Stamets states that with conventional logging practices, after 3-4 harvests of trees, the forest topsoil is largely gone. His techniques would combat this - the mycelia create new topsoil.
- Mycomediation. Wow, oyster mushrooms will eat oil spills! Some mushrooms are also hyper-accumulators of heavy metals. So you have to harvest the mushrooms and then get the metal removed - no eating. You should also not eat mushrooms growing by roadways because most are excellent at absorbing the arsenic in auto exhaust.
Unfortunately, no mushrooms do anything with lead.
I wonder if they can do anything with coal ash? There's lot of that nasty stuff around. - Mycopesticides.
I love mushrooms; my wife likes them too. When I was a kid, my dad had a fishing buddy, John Svengali, who owned a mushroom farm in eastern Jefferson County (KY), just east of the Shelby County line. He grew white button mushrooms, and whenever my dad fished with John, he always brought home a big bag of mushrooms. So I grew up eating these on a regular basis, prepared in several ways.
I use mushrooms wherever possible when cooking: shitake, portobella, porcini, oyster (in the "gourmet mushroom blend" must supermarkets sell), and white buttons. So I think I am going to try to grow some in the back part of our yard. The trees back there provide so much shade that the main thing growing there now is moss. My wife has also lately been introducing some hostas. Maybe we get enough mycelia back there, they will eat the leaves to I don't have to rake them.
From the book, the best candidates for growing from the ground with some scrap wood down look like parasol, garden giant, and oysters. OK, ordering from fungi.com "The Garden Giant Mushroom Patch™" for $25 and "The Mycelium Running Oyster Mushroom Patch™" for $24. $19.17 shipping.
Back in the mushroom growing business again. Yay!
5 comments:
Nice post!!
I personally was not positing that "it can save the world" - that was the subtitle of the book.
Still, I find the properties of mycelium/mushrooms to be amazing! Plus, 'shrooms delish to eat!
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