Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Ah yes i know stephen i would love to sit in on a course just to see how he preforms [must ring him and see if i can get an invite ]

i am thinking of starting a bathtub wicking bed to grow mushrooms, i have grown them from kits a few years ago.

i was thinking maybe i could buy a mushroom kit, take it out of the box and plant it in the wicking and let it spread from there. do you think that would work?

Thats something I wouldn't really know about
I guess so long as there isnt too much moisture it should work ok
to keep reproducing I think you will need to let some grow out to get more spores

I'm going through a major reconstruction at the moment so haven't had the change to experment

It will be interesting to see your results. I got a small kit last christmas (blue oyster shrooms). The kit is a bag of old coffee grounds that is used as the medium and the shrooms are at the fruiting stage.

An issue i have with following the instructions is keeping the media sufficiently moist. If i miss even one misting the fruit stopgrowing and that bud is all done with. Nothing like the pictures that they supplied with the product. So my guess is humidity will be critical.

I have been saving my coffee grounds and taking little plugs from the original kit to start my own kits. I store my used coffee in the freezer until i have enough for a ziplock bag full. Then i microwave the coffee til it's steaming and fill the bag with the steaming grounds. Ive taken the plugs and tossed them into the bags after cooling and so far not too much has happended. ANother bag i cut a hole in and inserted a plug, not too much has happened. My last try i did the same and this time covered the hole in the bag with an upended glass to keep the humidity in. Looks like there's some swelling of the buds on the plugs so i may get some growth out of this last set. It's only been a couple of days so far.

Obviously i need to learn about the growth cycle needed to get the mycelium to the fruiting stage.

poppa

I don't know a lot about it, but I think that to get good mushroom production you need to keep it relatively dry for a while to let the mycelium spread, and then when you're sure there's a good coverage you increase the moisture content to make it fruit.