Inspired by this Alex Renton article in The Times, I thought I should get on with cultivating the mushroom grow-box that I bought at the Foodies Festival a fortnight ago. Mr Renton is a keen fungi-forager and, while I like the idea of picking my own girolles, his article neatly spells out the dangers as well as the delights of harvesting wild mushrooms.
I’m quite attached to my kidneys so figured that I would stick with sprouting mushroom spores that had already been identified by the Ardnamushrooms experts.
It all seems very straightforward. This bag contains a mix of oak shavings, hardwood chips and gypsum that have been inoculated with blue oyster mycelia. We snipped the top off the bag, placed it in a well-watered plastic box and covered it with clingfilm. A quick squirt with a plant sprayer to keep the humidity up and, within a week, we will hopefully be eating butter-fried blue oysters on toast courtesy of Woody the mushroom block.
