How to Grow Shitake Mushrooms

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment we're going to talk about how to grow shitake mushrooms. Now shitake mushrooms are really a great delicacy and they can use them in so many different dishes. And they're not that cheap, so as you know, it's kind of a challenge but it's worth trying to grow them because they're a wonderful addition to your shade garden 'cause everyone's got shade where you can't grow anything. So if you've got moss in an area where you can't get any forest to grow in, start your own mushroom garden. So it's real easy to start mushrooms and there's different ways to starting mushrooms but they kind of follow the same policies. So you can start them in a bag with some mulch and some compost and keep it real moist and the trick is to get the shitake spores, that's the trick. So there's a lot of different companies that sell the spores and so you can try to actually take the mushroom that you buy at the store and take the little spores underneath and put them right in the bag. But you're probably not going to have a lot of success. So it's better to get the spores from someone that specializes in shitake mushroom spores. And so you can start them in the bag, keep them moist or you can take a piece of wood and you don't want to use pine; you want to use an oak or birch is the best and just cut little troughs or little holes throughout and then you can add peanut butter and put the spores right into the little cuts in the fall. And then in the next spring and summer you'll have lots of shitakes. Now there's other people too that just take a drill and drill holes all the way through a piece of wood and put the little spores in to the pieces of wood and then keep it moist in a moist natural environment or even in; I've heard people make them boxes and putting black plastic over it to give it really moist, that works too and then you'll find that the next year you'll have lots of shitake mushrooms. And it's really as easy as that."