A month or so back I posted about how excited I was to be doing a big bucket mushroom grow for the community. $30 a bucket, including the $5 deposit, and they get an instruction leaflet and the delights of growing mushrooms. I had so many interested people say they'd grab one, so I went ahead with the grow.
Two days and some thirty buckets of pink and yellow oyster mushrooms.
I sent out the messages to say they were ready. And five people picked them up. Five! I could not be bothered messaging people again. It annoyed me, of course, but also I realised that it wasn't exactly profitable and a lot of work for a lot of hassle. What was my main purpose in doing this? Did I want to start a small business? What exactly was I doing here?
What I realised is that I was just keen to spread my own excitment of mushrooms, and to that end, I achieved my goal. The five people that took the mushrooms stayed to chat for ages, and then messaged me almost constantly as they started pinning and fanning out in salmon pink skirts. One woman took a bucket as she wanted it as an educative experience for her eight year old, who loved it, so much so I couldn't help but giving them a yellow mushroom bucket for free, which ended up with me recieving a gift of hand made bibs for the grandbaby. THat little girl enthusiastically sprayed those mushrooms every day. What joy!
So now I have a whole mini greenhouse full of buckets. It's not been a complete success - some kind of wierd shit got into half my buckets, making them smell like garbage, so I had to toss them. The ones I kept had half assed mushrooms, so definitely some bacteria got in there. A learning experience. The blue shimeji worked great, but the lion's mane died in the ass. The pink mushroom buckets I did with a friend didn't work at all and I can't figure out why. Two dud spawn bags maybe? Who knows. Nature is so fickle!
But one thing I did get was the discovery of mushroom bacon. It's our new joy.
What you got to do with oyster mushrooms is dry fry them first to lose all the water. You got to cook them longer than you think - til they start to brown. Then you can add a small about of oil - in this case, the oil I'd just used to fry garlic in another pan - and seasonings. Smoked paprika and salt are the bomb in this instance. And then just keep frying til they go kinda crispy. Oh. My. God. Tossed through tortellini with fried asparagus - well. That was a good dinner.
So good that I made it again for breakfast - on top of scrambled eggs from the garden. This time I used butter and garlic scapes for the eggs, so the garlicky butter crisped up the pinkies. Husbands verdict? Better than bacon.
Gonna order some more pink spawn. Who wants a bucket?
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Mush love.
With Love,
The Fungi Lovers Community: Home of #FungiFriday
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I love love mushroom.
I practically can't do most meal with out it.
I love how you are able to monitize it, even when the initial time didn't come out well.
And the meal, oh they are mouth watering 😊😊😊.
Thank you for sharing 🙂
I think I can break even if I charge one or two people each grow, so in effect it will pay for my mushrooms. That would make me happy enough.
It's alright.
What ever makes you happy is fine!
Man both of those dishes look delicious. Mushrooms are a given in our household and are included in many of our favorite meals. The fact that I have never grown any just hit me like a ton of bricks lol. Must expand my gardening to include these tasties!
My question to you is: is a ton of mushrooms the same as a ton of bricks?
🍄🍄🤔🤔
you should give it a go!
lol I guess I should be weighing around a ton then? hahaaa
We have a mushroom grower near me so it is often that I go over to pick up a load of spent mushroom poop for my garden lol. I usually stock up then, but they have the standard commercial varieties. I grew up on morels, as many as we could eat and now live in the south where there are no morels.
Oh I'd love love love to find morels. This year was a great season for them here but I didn't find any. Spent mushroom substrate makes great compost, lucky you!!
Oh bummer the project turned out like it did. :(( But at least you discovered mushroom bacon!
I know right... A silver lining indeed...🍄🍄🍄
Some things don't really work out the way we expect them to be :) At least you tried and experienced how it is. Hope those remaining buckets will thrive :) The pink ones look great!
And I wouldn't say no to the mushroom bacon, hehe! Looks delicious!
!LUV
🍄🥓 is the best!!!! I can't get enough!!!
Always a silver lining, and you managed to get five sets of people addicted to mushroom growing AND you discovered mushroom bacon...
Hope you were not out of pocket too much
Actually broke even! It's $44 bucks each for the bags, and I bought two bags plus needed some more soy hulls. Oh actually made a 20 buck profit haha and spent two days making mushrooms so worked for negative dollars and a lot of joy so it's fine. And yes I'm still getting thrilled texts!
ah well a profit is even better!
People are fickle. When we moved, we gave tons of stuff away. For free. People would call and want us to hold things. Then never show up. We just started first come first serve. Basically just put it outside and told people it was there. Too easy to commit and then break promises online 🤦♂️ Glad you were able to spread the mushroom gospel at least. and that bacon looks awesome!
I think next time I'd take a deposit. I hate it when people won't hold stuff on marketplace but I get why..
Oh my, now that was quite the experience. I have often thought of trying mushrooms as I love doing microgreens and thought the process would be similar. So sorry that you lost so many yet the bacon replacement was worth it. ;-)
It's quite easy but labour intensive so a good system helps. It's worth it though to have 🍄🥓!!!
Wow those mushrooms have very striking shapes, the first one looks like an orchid, and the food looks delicious.
They are architecturally wonderful aren't they?
Seem to be from another world
Gosh, that is so cool! I remember when we were younger, my Mom bought a 'grow your own mushroom kit' and that was super fun... but it was white button-style mushrooms... but your buckets look like the bomb !LOLZ ... a real pity that you experienced so many issues though... and so few people bought them. I would have given it a go if I was near you. I am going to try dry frying my oyster mushrooms first next time and see how that pans out hahaha... thanks for the tip! Good luck with the next batch. Looks like you have a great set up there❣️ !LUV !AIVE
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Oh yes I had no idea you had to dry fry first to get rid of water and cook for way longer than you think! They are so good. You should try to grow them, it's fun!!
This is very extraordinary, I don't need to comment much, great.
I´m sorry to hear it hasn´t worked out. People can be like that unfortunately, it´s bloody frustrating though.
That food looks so good, I usually always use fresh mshrooms, but you make me want to try dried ones now xxxx
Dried mushroom in potato soup with thyme??