We had two types, and I can look up the names if it'd be helpful.
Break into egg sized pieces, bury it in 3" of compost. Keep wet.
Wet cardboard, layer of wood chips, crumble and spread the spore on top. Keep wet.
Our best guess was that we didn't keep it wet enough. 🤷♂️
The name of the mushroom species would most certainly be helpful. Otherwise it's a bit like saying 'I tried to keep a vertebrate as a pet one day but it did not go well'...
However, for most commonly grown mushrooms, learn how to make a liquid culture and then over-inoculate with that.
Liquid culture is the missing link between 'esoteric science' and 'anyone can do it' when it comes to mycology.
Liquid culture is also somewhat easy to mess up and then you’ve just expanded bacteria. I was trying to get good at LC for a bit but right now I have more luck with transferring a small chunk from a Petri dish, to a jar of grain, and then finally spawned to woodchips, which can be placed outside.
On the flip side I do agree LC is the easiest for the at-home grower to get started if you just buy it from a vendor.
Almond Agaricus (Agaricus subrufescens), which was the egg sized chunks
and
Wine cap (Stropharia rugoso-annulata), which was the other one
Our full notes on the Agaricus subrufescens:
Plant the spawn in layers after the soil temperature is going to remain above 50°F for the rest of the season.
Half a bag of spawn does a 9 sq ft bed.
Layers:
- 4" finished compost
- Moist enough to squeeze a drop of water out & stick into a ball
- Egg-sized pieces of spawn, 4-6" apart
- Do not crumble spawn
- 1" finished compost
- 3-4" straw or wood chips
And the Stropharia rugoso-annulata:
Bag of spawn does a 50 sq ft bed.
- Prep ingredients
- Soak a bale of fresh straw for 24-72 hours
- Soak cardboard for 30+ minutes
- Layers
- Cardboard
- Peel in half (the difficult way)
-bCorrugation up
- Poke drainage holes
- Straw
- Crumbled spawn a la brown sugar on oatmeal
- Tease into straw with pitchfork
- 2-3" aged hardwood chips
- Compress by walking on it
- Water weekly to get up to 1" precipitation
- Harvest in fall
I’m curious what you were breaking up into pieces. Spores are usually in a syringe
