Sustainable Homestead Ideas

[HeritageGoose13]

Did anybody say grow mushrooms?, with all that wood all you need is to buy spore plugs,, once you had some spores you could make more of your own. any fallen trees and branches could be used along with trees you have to cut to clear your property.

Have you ever done it? It seems like mushroom growing is more time and effort than its worth.

 

[DarkhorseFarmer]

Yeah, that does seem quite time consuming.. I don't know much about mushrooms, but my wife is always telling me we should look for morel mushrooms. We do have a lot that pop up in the lawn or next to trees in the woods.

Probably not a bad idea..

 

[cavemanrich]

Quote: I have to agree with you Heritagegoose13. I have only limited knowledge on mushroom growing.. Shitake mushrooms are one that is cultivated and it is a science on growing them... I knew a person that did it in Southern Illinois area. They only grow on white oak wood sawdust. The common mushrooms called button mushrooms found at grocery stores are grown on a mushroom medium. Used to be horse manure many decades back. The mushroom medium does get spent and needs to be replaced. The spent medium is good in the garden.. All the mushroom growing requires controlled humidity, temperature, and light. Long ago, mushrooms were cultivated inside caves. They may still be done that way by peeps that have caves on their property. ???? Morel mushrooms are wild mushrooms and are delicious. I am not aware of any morel mushroom farms, but I'm not sure. Mushrooms in general have to be approached with caution.. I have read news articles of in the past of knowledgeable people that have consumed mushrooms believed to be safe to eat, only to suffer liver failure..
When I was small and used to go mushroom picking in the forest, my mother thought me how to distinguish the poisonous ones from the good ones. There was a variety that looked almost identical to another... One was good and the other was poisonous. The way I was thought by my mom was to cut the stem and touch my tongue to the exposed cut surface. If it gave me a tingle, then it was bad. If it gave no reaction, then it was good. Other bad mushrooms we knew just by the way they looked. The touching to the tongue did not harm me since many many years later I am here to write about it..

If you want to know which 2 mushrooms they were, just ask and I can look up the varieties on wikipedia and post the links.

 

[HeritageGoose13]

Yeah, that does seem quite time consuming.. I don't know much about mushrooms, but my wife is always telling me we should look for morel mushrooms. We do have a lot that pop up in the lawn or next to trees in the woods.

Probably not a bad idea..

I'd advise against it. Foraging is always a bit of a gamble but mushrooms can be deadly. I would stick with easier to identify plants and trees (yes, many common trees are edible, though I doubt they're tasty) like dandelions, plaintain, etc.

Of course, people are free to forage but be careful. Get an expert to teach you, not a book!

One was good and the other was poisonous. The way I was thought by my mom was to cut the stem and touch my tongue to the exposed cut surface. If it gave me a tingle, then it was bad. If it gave no reaction, then it was good.

That's interesting, I have never heard that before.

 

[snow5164]

I would strongly advise you to wait threw a full year before you plant a tree or buy a pig. We have a 10 acre farm that we've lived on for two winters and this is the second summer... The drainage issues, sun exposure . What pops up out of the ground that you hadn't noticed before is valuable information before you make permanent decisions. We took down many feet of electric fence only to have to put it back up because this spring we are ready for a couple of cows.
We started with chickens this spring, easy enough so far, but costly to build the main structures. Fruit trees are in . Apple and pears because we like them and they can be preserved.dears will be attracted to anything eatable on your yard.rabbits will eat the rest. You won't win the battle I pulled out my four squash plants last summer because they ate all the flowers off before we had any squash!!no rabbits this year because we shot 4 in spring so far none in summer, there's nothing for them to eat

Think about your needs first, what do you buy that you could produce.. Milk, eggs,apples.

Oh yeah, and buy a BB gun you can kill the small nuisances and scare away the big ones

our front yard with fruit trees so we can shoot at the dear

 

[HeritageGoose13]

Oh yeah, and buy a BB gun you can kill the small nuisances and scare away the big ones our front yard with fruit trees so we can shoot at the dear

That's a beautiful piece of land, and nice dog, too.

 

[snow5164]

Thanks we love it here, we are in Manitoba, Canada. Our Bobby-Sue is almost 1, she is a yellow lab,such a sweetheart

this is the backyard we go back six acres, (where the cows will be next year)the building with the turquoise door is our boarding kennel.

 

[HeritageGoose13]

Nice!

 

[cavemanrich]

Quote: Here are the links to the 2 mushrooms that I was picking. Obviously I threw away the second ones. This is from Wikipedia..


1. The good one.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boletus_edulis


2. The bad one.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubroboletus_satanas

The pictures don't show them looking identical, but that is because even from the same variety mushrooms will each look a little different. Believe me when I say they were hard to distinguish. They are from the same BOLETE FAMILY. GENUS BOLETUS.

 

[1cock2hens]

Anything worth doing is going to take some effort, it seems easy to me.. I have never grown mushrooms outdoors myself we have researched it, My husband has grown them in the closet. there are literally half a dozen mushroom producers within an hours drive of me.. one really big operation.. they just stack there logs in a specific way , drill 1/2 inch holes every however many inches and plug the holes.. we do have very high humidity and forests full of hardwood which makes it easy..

http://www.fungi.com/shop/grow-mushrooms-on-logs-and-stumps.html this page has a little info and it tells you what kinds of mushrooms you can grow on different kinds of woods using the plugs they sell.