good compost shrooms?

[smogs]

any sugestion for a good compost shroom?

and got a spare print?

something that doesnt need light to grow would be ideal (i need to keep it covered or else it dries out to quickly).

Cheers

[Rev]

If youre looking for something NOW then i recommend grabbing an agaricus kit from bunnings or some other place, otherwise you can make your own spawn

this forms 'brick spawn' when broken up unto fistfuls and tucked into your compost. This is your spawn you have successfully removed all the hard and tricky bits of mushroom growing..

the compost should have been made quickly and should have tured dark colour after cooling bu still have some texture. there should be no traces of ammonia remaining and ideally gypsum should have been added in the composting process. Ideally its going to have the whitish actinomycete colonies visible

making it fruit is more complex and if you dont have complet control then you have none so let nature do its thing. Its going to want to fruit at cooler temps in autumn but if you plant it now it will grow into a nice sized colony

it will very likely start fruiting at the edges of the cover if there is a living soil/compost inteface. Agaricus need casing soils to fruit well. If you want higher yields you should remove the cover and case the substrate properly

In the begginning they used to use soil itself to case. You could do this too if you wanted and supplement with lime. Im referring to good quality garden top soil (not clay or sand. Soil has the benefits of being a eady made community of organisms with predators and prey all in together and good living soil holds mositure well

By adding the calcium as lime you just make it more suitable for the mushrooms to move into

down side is that some of these beasts will prey on your mycelium - but nothing living lasts forever

Im keen on trying some outdoor spawning using roll on lawn squares to case with and watering in with a solution containing gypsum and lime

this is an autumn job

If this seem a bit slap happy its because ive found thats what works best outdoors. Indoors you have a lot of control but outdoors you have none and yet nature manages to produce plenty of mushrooms. you have to accept you have no chance of control and then try and just make a bed that favours the mushroom.

The most critical elements outdoors are moisture in place of sterility, and good location in place of attentive care (you find a spot that looks good, make a bed and leave it alone till it fruits with only the occassional watering)

Outside youll have mice and insects but youll find that even contaminated spawn can give good results as it seems that the beasts of the soil often selectively clean up many contaminant moulds in preference to mycelium and that mycelium forms beneficial partnerships with soil bacteria to greatly increase vigour.

Contaminants are mostly opportunists feeding on simple food sources that are not able to compete elsewhere, or normal minority components of a healthy soil held in check by the presence of other species.

Compost can also be used a as final resting place for old cakes, blocks or bags of indoor species.If the cakes are dunked in a water/peroxide or water/bleach solutio (very weak) overnight then buried in water retaining mulch in a humid spot then they will reward with a bumper crop. After this the vermin usually get the cakes but its well worth the effort especially for contaminated cakes that are mostly mycelum with a patch of mould or bacteria for reasons mentioned.

this is best done at the start of the rainy season but you do it as soon as you can or the contaminants continue to expand their holdings

Mushrooms for the garden (starters)

Lawns

Parasol mushrooms

Shaggy manes

Mushrooms for compost

Button mushrooms

Shaggy manes

and compost loving species

Mulch/compost

Wood blewitts

Almond agaricus

Mulch

Stropharia

Hypholoma (and related wood loving species)

King oyster

shimeji

[smogs]

cheers

excelent reply!