Heart of the Forest Farm

A Different Approach to GYO Mushrooms

We have heard SO MANY stories of home cultivation woes

One of the most challenging parts of growing mushrooms, especially at the beginning, is uncertainty. We hope to demystify the process with a unique strategy - highlighting potential problems and common mistakes first. Please don't let this scare you! Knowing what you're up against is essential to bring in year after year of delicious harvests.

We only offer information about a few easy, common sense grow techniques that do not require the purchase of specialty mushroom tools or disposables. There are many good ways to grow mushrooms, but our vision is different. We believe the nutritional benefits of mushrooms and pure joy of growing should be easy for everyone! New England is full of loggers, mills, tree service companies, firewood sellers, neighbors with downed limbs, or even free roadside piles where wood can be sourced. Mushrooms could be a staple in any northern garden - especially when for many of us shade is easier to come by than sunshine.

Everyone that succeeds in growing mushrooms with our handcrafted logs and spawn becomes a fighter for native biodiversity and accessible, healthy backyard food. That's why we are so invested in your success. We hope our years of trial and error can help lead to better prepared home growers who know what to look for and what to expect.

Biggest Challenges:

Timing

Pests and Predators

Growing mushrooms requires patience and observation. A large log can take many months to incubate. A flush of oysters from that log, or the freshest wine caps, can go from perfect to past prime almost overnight. Several pounds of mushrooms may grow at once from just a few beds or logs, that will need to be refrigerated and prepared within a few days. Some strains are quite picky about fruiting temperature also.

Being patient, knowing when to closely watch the strain you're growing, and having a plan for your harvest, is key. We think the rewards are very worth it!

Pests and Predators

Many of our fellow creatures also benefit from eating mushrooms. Slugs, flies, and even mammals may be attracted to your harvest. In outdoor mushroom beds, worms and other predators may feed on mycelium even before mushrooms emerge.

Although common methods used in gardens to repel pests can help, we think picking mushrooms in the morning before insect activity is high helps the most! Gathering at early stages of maturity can also increase shelf life.

Lack of Moisture

Pests and Predators

Lack of Moisture

Logs will not colonize properly if too dry! Mushrooms need protection from sun and wind to avoid drying out. Mushroom logs and beds should be watered just like the garden when not receiving regular rainfall, unless in a consistently humid environment. Mushrooms are especially susceptible to drying out when first beginning to pin (aka baby mushrooms.)

Paying attention to moisture and humidity throughout the grow cycle is important!

Competing Fungi

Lack of Moisture

A common reason that home mushroom grow projects go awry is competing fungi.

To avoid competing fungi, source freshly cut wood with intact bark & no visible rot.

Protect mushroom logs and beds from contact with the soil using a biodegradable barrier like scrap softwood, cardboard, or brown paper bags.

Despite our best efforts, competitors may sometimes win. For this reason it is absolutely vital to know how to identify the mushroom you are intending to grow!

Contamination

Competing Fungi

Not Enough Air

Improperly handled, overly damp or previously opened mushroom spawn can become susceptible to contamination. Always work with clean hands in a clean workspace.

Common contaminants include mold and bacteria. Although most are harmless, certain kinds can be dangerous and all should be handled with the same care. Any spawn product or culinary mushroom with mold, off colors or smells should be discarded, as with any food.

Improperly dehydrated or stored culinary mushrooms are also prone to mold. Follow food safety storage guidelines.

Not Enough Air

Competing Fungi

Not Enough Air

Mycelium, the fuzzy white colonies that make up mushroom spawn, are more similar to animals than plants. They take in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide just like we do. This is not a problem when growing outdoors!

Spawn sealed in a plastic bag or container without ventilation can suffocate. If mushrooms grow indoors under plastic without enough air, they can be elongated, tough, and unhealthy looking.

While their oxygen needs are not great (they can breathe inside a dead tree) spawn and fresh mushrooms should never be sealed completely in plastic or glass, even after harvest.

Glossary of essential terms:

Mycelium

Mycelium is the vegetative structure of fungi - the part inside the log or under the ground that you mostly can't see. In transparent buckets or bags, we get to see its growth on full display.

If you want to grow apples, you need to grow trees. If you want to grow mushrooms, you need to grow fungal mycelium. Mushrooms are the fruiting body of mycelium just like apples are the fruit of a tree. Just like any other crop or livestock (everything really), the mycelium's needs must be met for it to produce fruit. Fungi are more like animals than plants - they inhale oxygen and exhale CO2 just like we do.

Substrate

In mycology, a substrate is any target material prepared for growing mushrooms. Substrates we use commonly include grain, sawdust and logs, but different species of mushrooms prefer different substrates. Oyster mushrooms especially are adept and colonizing a wide range of substrates, and have even been trained to consume cigarette butts and motor oil.

Spawn

Mushroom spawn is colonized material, like sawdust or grain, for the purpose of transferring mycelium to a new substrate such as logs or straw. Spawn is basically equivalent to a pack of starter plants. Although much more carefree than most plants, mushroom spawn is alive and needs specific conditions to thrive.

Spores are the fungal equivalent of seeds, but are much more challenging to work with. Most mushroom spawn is created via tissue cloning.

Spores

Mushroom spores are produced by mature fruiting bodies and are similar to tiny seeds, with one huge difference - fungi are monokaryotic. This means 2 spores that are compatible must germinate and fuse together to reproduce. Mushroom spawn is made from cultured tissue and does NOT contain spores.

Growing mushrooms indoors can result in extra spores in your home. Spores are already everywhere, we inhale spores with every breath, but we discourage growing indoors in buildings with existing water damage or mold.

Inoculation

This word conjures up a variety of images, but in the fungal world inoculation just means to intentionally transfer mycelium to a new substrate where it can grow. Our inoculation methods are simple and do not require drilling holes, buying pegs or specialty tools, or using hot wax.

Incubation

The time during which mycelium is colonizing a substrate is called incubation. Different mushrooms like to colonize at slightly different temperatures. Even outdoor beds are incubating until they are full of mycelium.

Fruit/Flush

Because mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungal mycelium, they are frequently referred to as fruits. The time period when a substrate is actively growing mushrooms is called fruiting. A fully colonized log or grow kit may be called "ready to fruit". A crop of mushrooms is referred to as a flush. We hope our products give you many a fine flush of fruits!

Pins/Pinning

Baby mushrooms are referred to as pins. In nature, high humidity after rain causes fungal colonies to start pinning. Pinning is the stage when it is most critical to ensure adequate moisture. Farmers sometimes soak and cover logs to initiate pinning and ensure a strong start for the flush.

Tek

Exploring the world of home mycology, you will inevitably encounter the term "tek." This is myco-slang for technique, and often becomes a moniker for successful, time-tested methods. Including the word "tek" in your search terms when researching mushroom growing will expand the resources you can find. (e.g. bucket or straw bale tek)

Frequently Asked Questions:

Please reach us at heartoftheforestfarm@yahoo.com with your questions

I tried lion's mane pegs and nothing grew. What happened?

Yeah.... us too. Lion's mane pegs are our favorite example of a mushroom product where few (if any?) users end up with something in the frying pan. This high failure rate is why we deviate from popular inoculation methods and commercial strains. We could already have made a nice business of throwing some dowel pegs into a jar with grain spawn and selling them. Most customers would presume *they* did something wrong when the log fails, just like we and probably some of you did.

Peg spawn offers a single point of inoculation per drilled hole. Drill and fill methods can make the log's bark more vulnerable to competitors, even with wax, which is mostly to preserve moisture. Trying to incubate commercial strains outdoors in a log full of holes can be sort of similar to using a pampered show dog to fight a pack of wild coyotes. Logically, it's not that surprising that most of us get turkey tail.

Drill and fill techniques using sawdust spawn and a specialty tool is more effective than plugs, because it has more points of inoculation. It is an industry standard in large scale shiitake production, but is still hands on and requires force fruiting for substantial harvests.

Stacking slices of log with spawn offers the most points of inoculation by volume and leaves the bark more intact to protect and keep humidity in the log.

Our log gardens made with native Hericium coralloides, a member of the lion's mane clan, are currently in testing using the same methods as our oysters and should show results by late summer 2025. We really look forward to bringing a reliable lion's mane log to our customers!

Can I grow on the old rotten wood or stumps in my yard?

Most likely, no. Mushrooms are always surprising, and it's not impossible that you would get a few. We only inoculate fresh green wood because to make good mushrooms, mycelium needs good food. Putting spawn into old wood means feeding it other decomposers' dried up leftovers. They don't have what they need to thrive.

It's fun to experiment sometimes, but we think the best use of our handcrafted spawn is to make high quality, reliable mushroom logs that will grow food for years to come. That means using fresh green logs (aged at least 2 weeks) with intact bark and following best practices.

I live in an apartment and don't have a yard, can I still grow mushrooms?

Absolutely! There are many home mushroom projects and countertop kits specifically for growing indoors. Countertop "bucket tek" projects can easily be made with our spawn. We detail simple stovetop pasteurization for home growers in an upcoming blog post.

As soon as they're ready, we're also going to see if our mini Queen of the Hill log gardens will function like a grow kit, indoors. Fingers crossed!

How can I be sure the mushrooms I grew are the right ones and not a poisonous lookalike?

You should absolutely learn to identify any mushroom you intend to eat. The selection of mushrooms we sell (oyster, shiitake, hericiums, wine caps) are easy to identify and vigorously outgrow competitors when handled properly. ID characteristics can be found for each species we sell under "Our Mushrooms"

If making your own log gardens, we highly recommend following our instructions and incubating logs with a barrier from competing fungi. This is not because most competing fungi are dangerous, but they could impact log productivity.

Although the likelihood of accidentally growing a poisonous lookalike with our products is nearly nonexistent, acting with common sense when dealing with unfamiliar mushrooms or plants is a best practice to follow at all times and skill levels. Never eat something you cannot identify with certainty!

Do you grow psychedelics? Believe it or not, this is our MOST frequently asked question!

No (it's a felony) and the methods we teach for culinary mushrooms are not useful for growing psychedelics. If you're interested in our take on psychedelic mushrooms and other natural entheogens, please check it out here.

Know Before You Grow

A Different Approach to GYO Mushrooms

We have heard SO MANY stories of home cultivation woes

Biggest Challenges:

Timing

Pests and Predators

Pests and Predators

Pests and Predators

Pests and Predators

Pests and Predators

Lack of Moisture

Pests and Predators

Lack of Moisture

Competing Fungi

Competing Fungi

Lack of Moisture

Contamination

Competing Fungi

Not Enough Air

Not Enough Air

Competing Fungi

Not Enough Air

Ready to Learn More?

Everyone that succeeds in growing mushrooms with our handcrafted logs and spawn becomes a fighter for native biodiversity and accessible, healthy backyard food."

Glossary of essential terms:

Mycelium

Substrate

Spawn

Spores

Inoculation

Incubation

Fruit/Flush

Pins/Pinning

Tek

What to Know

About Habitat

Frequently Asked Questions:

Okay, I'm

Ready to Grow!

GYO Guides

Making Log Gardens

Caring for Log Gardens

Wine Cap Beds

There is still SO much more to learn about mushrooms...

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