growing mushrooms

Grub2

Hello. I just wondered if it was possible to encourage and grow wild mushrooms in the lawn or in a rough grass area I have.

I have picked a lot in the fields just recently, and have actually had too many to cope with. Some that were going past their best I have put under the turf in different areas around the garden and wondered if there was anything above a zero chance this might result in mushrooms growing another day

Gary Hobson

I have no experience of doing that. But I do have a lot of fungi (mushrooms) in my garden.

I know that the mushrooms that we see above ground are the fruits of organisms which grow almost entirely beneath the ground, as a fine web.

The web gets the foods to nourish itself from other host plants. In most cases the fine web becomes part of the root system of the host plants. The fungus cannot exist without the host plants that it is feeding on. In the case of grassland, the mushroom may be feeding on the roots of the grasses. The fungus helps the host plant in return, by increasing the area of the roots of the host plant.

If you were to transplant a square of turf, which incorporated the fibrous web, then it seems to me reasonable that that could produce the fruiting bodies next season.

There are techniques for trying to grow cultivated mushrooms, in the dark on compost, or by injecting spores into dead wood. But growing mushrooms in grass seems far more natural, if it can be done.

Dovefromabove

The easiest way of growing edible mushrooms in the garden that I know of is to buy spent mushroom compost to use as a mulch - a few crops of mushrooms usually result.  I see no reason why you couldn't lift a few turves and put some spent mushroom compost under them and see what happens - if the conditions are suitable it will hopefully establish itself - if the conditions aren't suitable then not a lot is lost.

Grub2

Thanks to you both.

I don't hold out much hope with my method but the mushroom compost or transporting a piece of turf seem like good ideas. I will get back to you in a year....or two!