Growing mushrooms in the garden | The Press

Mushrooms emerging on your land? Rejoice! This is a sign that the soil is rich. Mushrooms are great allies of plants, in addition to being an additional source of food in the garden when they are edible. To make sure they are, they can be planted there. Hello oyster mushrooms, stropharia and shiitake mushrooms!

Isabelle Morin
The Press

By their composition, fungi are similar to insects. A bit like plants, they create an important network of roots called the mycelium, the emerging part of which is in a way the fruit. “Mushrooms are a kingdom apart,” says biologist Judith Noël Gagnon, who is also co-owner of Mycoboutique. This kingdom is not only omnipresent, but also essential to the balance of nature.

Fungi are classified into three categories: parasites, mycorrhizal and saprophytes. While the former attack organic matter and cause its death, the latter live in symbiosis with the roots of plants. But it is the latter that capture the interest of gourmet gardeners.

Saprophytes decompose organic matter which they return to plants. As long as they are fed – straw, stumps, paper, ramial wood chips, cardboard or yard waste – they produce “fruit”. Like most vegetables, they are water demanding and will need at least 50% humidity to survive. If they are happy, so are our plants!

The benefits of mycelium

Fungi contribute to insect diversity and soil complexity. By breaking down organic matter for food, they also make it accessible to plants, which grow faster and healthier.

Added to these benefits is the pleasure of seeing mushrooms grow and harvest, and of cooking them. “There is no negative effect to this companionship in the garden. At best, we have mushrooms to eat, and at worst, they enrich the soil,” says Geoffroy Renaud. Since mushrooms reproduce, among other things, through their spores that they sprinkle or propel around them, neighbors could however see this as an inconvenience in a community garden.

A mushroom-flavoured vegetable garden

You might think that mushrooms only grow in the shade. As long as they get their moisture fix, sunshine is not an issue. “They risk drying out more quickly in direct sunlight, but that doesn’t affect their edibility,” points out Judith Noël Gagnon. The ideal is to harvest them early, as soon as their cap unfolds. »

Some mushrooms can be inoculated in the garden from pieces of species that are known to be edible. However, a reliable way to obtain the varieties sought is to start from seeded blocks sold by a good number of Quebec mushroom farms. This material is then crumbled in a potting soil covered with moist mulch in a ratio of 1 to 5 or to 10 in the garden.

Many of these farms are also looking to get rid of their devitalized cultivation blocks. After four harvests, the substrates have been emptied of their food, but still contain the mycelium. This devitalized substance can be used directly in the garden as compost or be revitalized. All you have to do is feed the mushroom back.

To perk up devitalized substrates, the recipe is simple: shred the blocks in an airtight bin, adding woody matter (dead leaves, stems, branches, garden waste, paper or cardboard). Cover with water, soak for 30 minutes, drain. The mixture can then be incorporated into the soil, unless you leave it in a boiler or a geotextile pot on the balcony to see mushrooms grow there. They will emerge in four to six weeks.

In the following fall or spring, the mycelium can be nourished again with garden debris by opening up the soil to incorporate the residual matter. If the selected varieties resist our winters, as is the case for the blue, white or elm oyster mushrooms, the wine red strophaire, the hedgehog’s mane, the shiitake, the hairy coprin or the blue foot, we will see emerge new crops the following year. And so the cycle begins again like a fire that we feed!