GROW YOUR OWN MUSHROOMS

Evening Star, Issue 22805, 13 November 1937, Page 23

GROW YOUR OWN MUSHROOMS

Mushroom cultivation is easy and inexpensive. Fresh manure from horses fed on dry stuff (hay, etc.) is required, but before being made up it should be forked over daily for a week or so to sweeten and dry it. The beds may then be prepared in a cool shed, or in a small way manure could even be packed into boxes. Each bed should be of a size convenient to get at—say, about 3ft from front to back and 12in deep. It is a good plan to have the beds against the wall, in which case a slight upward slope can be made towards the back. Beat down the manure firmly with the spade, then leave for a few days to cool down tp about 70deg. If a thermometer is not available insert a stick for a few minutes; if this can be held quite comfortably in the hand on removal the spawn may be put in. The mushroom spawn is sold in the form of bricks, which should be broken into pieces about the size of an egg. These are then planted all over the bed 2in deep and 9in or lOin apart. Cover the whole bed with about 2in of good brown soil (not too dry, but don’t go to extremes and make it almost muddy), make everything quite firm, then throw sacking over to exclude light. Hardly any water should be necessary, then only if the soil appears very dry. It is essential that moisture should he maintained in the atmosphere, however, by spraying warm water on the floor and walls daily, but not on the bed itself. If the beds are preferred out of doors the beds are made in much the same way, though they are usually ridge shaped, about 3ft high, the spawn being inserted on each side. It is also necessary to guard against chill by covering with a foot or so of straw on top of the sacking. . A point may be added regarding the picking of mushrooms. The stem should be given a twist in order to remove the whole of it, then the hole refilled with soil; the supply will then continue for weeks. Sooner or later, of course, the bed will become exhausted, when it should be entirely remade from fresh manure.—‘ Popular Gardening,’ London.