Sweeping up leaves is a tedious seasonal chore. Get your hands on a packet of oyster mushroom spawn, however, and you can turn autumn into “feeding time” for your very own colony of multicoloured mushrooms.
Despite what gardening books tell you, growing oyster mushrooms really isn’t hard. After a couple of attempts I quickly learned to ignore rambling pages of advice involving power tools, hot wax and piles of logs of specific timber types. It turns out that oyster mushrooms are a voracious species that will happily devour any moist, carbon-rich substance.
Commercially they have been cultivated on everything from straw and coffee grounds to paper, sawdust and even scraps of old cotton clothes. Piles of freshly fallen leaves, therefore, are like caviar to them. Of all the fungi I have experimented with, only bread mould is easier to cultivate. Why oyster mushrooms sell for such a premium in fancy food shops I will never know.
Establishing a colony in your compost heap takes minutes and could be productive for decades, as long as it is kept well fed with odds and sods of garden and kitchen waste. Introducing these fungi can also speed up the composting process, meaning you could get lovely rich leaf mould (perfect for mulching beds and borders) in half the time. Anyone who has opened up a compost heap months, even years, later to find just a damp pile of seemingly mummified leaves that refuse to rot down should give this a go.
Packets of spawn can be picked up online for a couple of quid and could start fruiting within a month or two, providing tasty harvests by the boxful (not to mention a never ending source of surprise to kids). If you are going to do just one thing in your garden this week, make this it.
How to set up your colony
Sparking mushroom spawn into life is much like starting off yeast in baking. Pour the contents into a mixing bowl and sprinkle over 1 tsp of sugar and the warm grounds from a pot of coffee. The sugar provides energy to the fungi, while the coffee grounds provide moisture and act as a bulking agent. Leave the mix at room temperature for 24 hours. Dig a small hole, about 1ft deep, at the centre of your compost heap and sprinkle the mixture in, before lightly forking it into the heap. Cover the hole and leave the fungi to get on with it. The root-like mycelium of the oyster mushroom fungus will soon colonise the heap. Although there are no toxic lookalikes in the UK, do make 100% sure they are oyster mushrooms before you pick them.
Email James at james.wong@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter:@Botanygeek
