Dear Santa: Please Send Enokitake Spawn

I was suffering from sticker shock from buying mushrooms for the Thanksgiving holiday, when a friend pointed out that one can grow mushrooms in a bag in the basement, in the compost pile, on stumps or even in a helpful alliance with the garden. The most popular to grow are Shiitake Mushrooms. For the coldest basements, Enokitake mushrooms will grow in a 45 degree basement, which would look like this picture. Shaggy Mane mushrooms could be grown in your basement, and then the leftover bag can be put in the compost pile to provide a second crop.

Here is the perfect gift for a gardener for shady tree spots, for the pre-teen who likes science projects or just for a truly different and surprising gift for someone who has everything, started at about $25 plus shipping from Fungi Perfecti. Hint, hint, Santa Claus!

These three species of friendly fungi: the Garden Oyster (Hypsizygus ulmarius), the Garden Giant™ (Stropharia rugoso-annulata) and the Shaggy Mane (Coprinus comatus) are planted in the garden with your normal plants. The garden are actually does better with these mushrooms because they improve soil quality. And, you get three crops of mushrooms as well. (Picture and kit from Fungi Perfecti).

And if the idea of good eating is not enough of an incentive. Think about the great art and conversation pieces that this would make. So what if the dark shade flower garden also had these Garden Oyster mushrooms.

A great ally for most garden vegetables, this aggressive Garden Oyster mushroom unlocks nutrients from straw, sawdust, and organic debris, feeding the roots of underlying plants. Ideal for over-wintering and mulching, or early Spring planting where straw is overlaid.
(Fungi Perfecti )

OK, I realize I am having way too much fun with this topic, however just imagine this stump as a conversation piece in the yard. Imagine the reaction when you say it is only for good eating!

Hericium erinaceus is widely distributed on hardwoods—particularly oaks—across much of North America. These are beautiful mushrooms, with cascading white icicle-like spines, and are some of the best of the edible fungi.
(Fungi Perfecti )

However this is my favorite fungi for it cannot be mistaken for any thing else, it is very exotic looking and just great eating. However, it take as long as two years to grow. These are valuable enough to hide.

Cloned from some of the largest Black Morels (Morchella angusticeps) ever found, we provide pure culture spawn of this most popular of spring mushrooms. A mushroom bed is prepared outdoors and with some luck, time and favorable spring weather, a secret Morel patch can be protected within the privacy of your backyard.
(Fungi Perfecti)

And here is a great diagram of the process and your options. Basically you plant spores not seeds, which are so small that you use sawdust with spores for the planting. For stumps, you drill holes (not kidding) and plant plugs.

(Diagram from Fungi Perfecti)

I am using the company my friend recommended although I have not yet had a chance to check it out. However it sounds like a US small owner enviromentally friendly business.

Fungi Perfecti® is a family-owned, environmentally friendly company specializing in using gourmet and medicinal mushrooms to improve the health of the planet and its people. Founded by mycologist and author Paul Stamets, we are leaders in a new wave of technologies harnessing the inherent power of mushrooms and fungal mycelium worldwide. Fungi Perfecti® is Certified Organic by the Washington State Department of Agriculture. In business since 1980, we offer an ever-expanding product line for the mushroom enthusiast.
(Fungi Perfecti)

As you can see, fungi comes in a great variety. Fungi can be the single-cell Baker's yeast fungus that is used in baking of bread, pizza and dumplings. Many people could not live as well without the yeast that produces beer. Less well known is that there is fungi involved in making soy sauce and stonewashed jeans. White rot fungi, can degrade insecticides, herbicides, pentachlorophenol, creosote, coal tars, and heavy fuels and turn them into carbon dioxide, water, and basic elements. Even new anti-viral drugs are being found from mushrooms. And there are even mushrooms that glow in the dark.

Warning, some fungi are very harmful, and I would also caution using only native or already introduced species only. Dutch elm disease is a fungal disease of elm trees which is spread by the elm bark beetle. Although believed to be originally native to Asia, it has been accidentally introduced into America and Europe, where it has devastated native populations of elms which had not had the opportunity to evolve resistance to the disease.

Fungi is a natural part of our environment, that is necessary part of decomposition. In getting soil ready for commercial use, frequently everything in the soil is killed included all the helpful decomposition elements. Fertilizer is not enough and runs off into lakes and streams. So basically part of fixing the now dead soil, is putting back the correct natural elements. Filling an environmental niche appropriately is important, because a harmful version could easily step into this niche. This picture shows the difference between growing lawn grasses without and with the appropriate decomposition support like fungi.

Now if we could just figure out what to plant in Washington DC to help the decomposition there, we would be set.