What are Myco-Spikes?
MycoSpikes are best suited for growing areas of between 10 and 20 square feet, or small container gardens. Wine Cap Sawdust Spawn, on the other hand, is best suited to larger project areas up to 50 square feet.
As a note, you should not shy away from planting Wine Caps along with or alongside garden plants of most kinds. Many garden plants have been shown to have a symbiotic relationship with Wine Caps. For that reason, it is worth experimenting with integrating wine caps into your garden. A commonly utilized method is to plant wine cap strips between vegetable crops, or on the outer perimeter of an existing garden bed.
MycoSpikes can be pushed into existing mulch bed areas and may thrive in those conditions. However, to increase the likelihood of a good yield, you will want to build a lasagna bed, as shown below.
Myco-Spikes Instructions
What are Wine Cap Mushrooms?
Wine Cap Mushrooms, also known as Garden Giants, are delicious wine-colored choice edible mushrooms native to North America, known for to grow vigorously in garden areas. In fact, they can grow up to the size of dinner plates! Beyond having the ability to enhance your garden, wine caps are known for their delicious nutty flavor profile, containing subtle hints of potato.
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How do I plant Myco-Spikes?
Select a Location
Wine caps grow on the forest floor, so in order to best mimic these conditions, you should plant your beds in dappled sunlight. Shaded beds will still yield, but are not optimal. Consider planting your beds under a tree, in a forested area, along a structure, or in between rows of vegetables or other garden plants.
If you choose to use a container to grow your mushrooms in, make sure that the container has adequate drainage so as not to flood the mushroom mycelium.
As a note, wine caps mushrooms that are exposed to sunlight have been shown to absorb considerable amounts of Vitamin D, and fully shaded mushrooms do not.
Build Your Lasagna Bed
Don't overcomplicate this. Keep it simple.
Wine Caps grow best on fresh hardwood material like mulch or hardwood chips, and even sawdust. However, they also require layers of nitrogen material such as grass clippings, straw or yard waste in between.
Alternate layers of woody and nitrogen rich material until your bed reaches a depth of no more than a foot.
The top layer of the beds should be mulch or hardwood chips to protect from frost and to help keep the beds moist. As an option, spread a layer of straw on the top of the surface to achieve the same goal.
Push the Spikes in
Push in your MycoSpikes equidistant from one another across your garden bed. For best results, you will want to space your MycoSpikes 12 inches apart from one another.
What maintenance is required?
Keeping the soil moist should be your focus. The level of maintenance required will depend on the moisture of the location that you selected and your local climate. Regardless, for the first two to three weeks, water your beds every other day to ensure moisture is not lost. This will give you an idea of how regularly you will need to check up on moisture levels thereafter. Depending on your location, you may not need to water them at all.
When do I harvest?
If you have developed healthy beds early enough in the season, your mushrooms will begin to yield in the fall. Many times, the mushrooms do not begin to fruit until the following fall.
If you replenish the beds with woody material, you will ahve mushrooms year after year.
Harvest the yield when the mushrooms begin to flatten out.
How long after planting will they grow?
The growth time varies depending on the substrate and the time of planting. It may take up to a year for the mushrooms to grow. To have a chance of seeing mushrooms the same year, it's best to plant in early spring and use a greater ratio of nitrogen rich material. You can plant at any time of the year as long as you keep the soil moist and plant before the first frost.
When is the best time of year to plant?
When planting wine cap beds, you will want to avoid the first frost by at least three weeks. If you live in an area with a frost during the winter season, you will want to plant between March and September. If you don't need to worry about frost, your planting season is not constrained.
Can they be planted alongside of vegetables or plants?
Absolutely!
Wine cap mushrooms are excellent companions for other plants, and will help your garden replicate the natural conditions that plants normally grow in. They are symbiotic!
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Wine caps help decompose organic material in the soil, making nutrients more readily available to plants.
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They have the ability to trap and consume parasitic nematodes that feed on the roots of garden plants, thus protecting the plants from these harmful organisms.
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The plants help keep the mushrooms sufficiently shaded.
How long before the mushrooms grow?
If your beds are planting in early spring, you may begin seeing mushrooms fruit in the early fall. If you plant them in the summer or fall, you will likely not see them until the following spring.