What Does it Grow On and When Do I Plant It?

Spring is here and the season of new growth is upon us! Many of you have asked about which mushrooms prefer what wood and when they fruit. Lucky for you we have a beautifully laid out page just for this! Our ZONE FRUITING MAP is an exceptionally helpful tool in deciding which mushrooms you would like to grow in your specific zone and when you would expect them to fruit. It even outlines which mushrooms are dependable fruiters and which ones are fun and experimental! Don’t worry though we will talk about some of that here as well!

Trees and logs.

Let’s start with when to fell your trees. Preferably your trees would be cut down in the fall or early spring.  You want to make sure that the temperatures are not dropping below freezing before inoculating your logs. Don’t forget that the trees need to be plugged within a month of cutting them down and all of your logs should be cut from healthy live trees. Once felled it would be best to keep your logs off the ground to avoid contamination and any other mycelium from inoculating the log before you get to it. 

Choosing the type of spawn you will use.

Next you’re going to want to decide which mushrooms you will be growing and what kind of spawn you’ll be inoculating your logs with. Mushroom Mountain offers sawdust spawn, and plug spawn for log inoculation. We also offer coffee cultivator kits that grow oyster mushrooms in spent coffee grounds which is a really awesome way to repurpose grounds and produce a delicious dinner. We also offer indoor fruiting kits in case you want fresh mushrooms while you wait the 9-12 months that it takes the logs to colonize and fruit.

Picking what mushrooms you will grow.

One example of our many varieties of edible mushrooms is Shiitake mushrooms. They are infamous around the world because of their delicious savory and meaty taste. This mushroom prefers hardwood and will fruit on alder, ash, birch, bitternut, cherry, chestnut, eucalyptus, hophornbeam, ironwood, maple, oak, pecan, sweet
gum, sycamore, tulip poplar, walnut and willow.

We offer a variety of shiitake that fruit in different temperatures. Shiitake wide range offers our widest range of fruiting temperatures 55-77F. Here in South Carolina we are a zone 7 so they would fruit in April, May and October. We also offer Shiitake cold which fruits in temperatures ranging between 40-55F, warm 70-85F, and wild 45-65F. We offer a large variety of other edible mushrooms including the nutty and savory chestnut fungus, shimeji, and several more on our spawn shop page.

Growing medicinal mushrooms.

Medicinal mushrooms are not only fun to grow, but also can be used to make extracts. Lion’s mane is a beautiful mushroom that grows like long fur resembling, you guessed it! Lion’s mane! Not only can you use it for cooking, some say that it tastes like crab meat! You can also use it to make medicinal extracts that can help improve cognitive function and repair nerve damage. It also has the ability to boost your immune system and reduce inflammation!  Lion’s mane is also called Pom Pom because of its pom pom like shape fruits. It grows in temperatures ranging between 50-65F and grows on beech, cherry, elm, maple, oak, black walnut, and sterilized sawdust indoors. In South Carolina you will find it fruiting in April, May and October. Other varieties of medicinal mushrooms include Reishi and Turkey tail.

Feel free to save the map so that you can have this information available! Sharing knowledge is a beautiful thing and watching the mushroom community grow and thrive is what this is all about! Happy shrooming my dear friends until next time!