Mushroom farm

[ovenbird]

OK, so I have been building these retaining walls in my back yard. The 6 pallets from the blocks are pretty rotten as I had the stone delivered in spring of '07. I had planned to use the pallets to make the sides and back of my compost bins, but now need a different use for them. I have a rather shady spot on the SE of a large blue spruce. It is the site of my old compost pile. I was thinking of stacking them there and loading them with wood chips or straw, letting it rot some, and inoculating it all with mushroom spawn. Do you think it will work? Should I use wood chips or straw or some other medium? The pallets are probably pine or fir.

[FritzDaKat]

I've seen pictures of just a well mulched pile of yard waste grow edible Fungi. Straw is comonly used as well for some, best bet would be to pick your mushroom type first then just check it's preferred type of spawn bed. Some are even specific in terms of what type of wood mulch they'll grow on.

Another thing to consider is what the pallet's had been used for in thier life cycle, had toxins perhaps been absorbed by the wood? I know working in an Air Cargo environment for a while that they can get intimate with some rather foul stuff. So perhaps not ideal for the Gardener who is truly organic-minded at heart.

[lorna-organic]

I burned a pallet once, Ovenbird, and that thing went up like it was soaked with gasoline. I have no idea why it burned so fast and so hot. It appeared to be plain wood, but it must have been treated with something. ???

Lorna
Boycott Monsanto

[journey149]

Mushroom spawn do you buy it or make it? I would love to try to grow mushroom

[Denninmi]

Ovenbird, yes, that could work, assuming it is kept moist enough. Exactly WHAT blend you fill it with will depend mostly upon what species of mushrooms you want to grow -- each one has specific likes and dislikes. Shitakes, for example, love oak and would like to grow in oak chips and sawdust. Oysters are sort of the "bottom feeders" of the mushroom world and grow on just about anything, as long as there is a good balance between carbon and nitrogen sources (leaves and grass clippings, for example). King Stropharia would enjoy a mix of straw and wood chips, but NOT oak, which is too acid, something "sweeter" like maple or fruitwood.

Lorna, you pallet probably wasn't treated lumber, they are NOT made to hold up that long, and most manufactureres wouldn't spend the extra money to treat them, unless it was for some special application -- that is my understanding of it, anyway. We used to get LOTS of pallets at the garden center from nursery stock deliveries. However, it was probably full of "Mother Nature's" preservatives -- resins from the "softwood" lumber, pine, spruce, or fir, that it was probably made from, which explains why it burnt so fast and hot.

Dennis