If you haven’t noticed, I’m a huge fan of the species Stropharia Rugosoannulata. It feeds nutrients to and hydrates plants, builds quality soil, feeds bees and humans. It’s tasty, prolific and most importantly, easy to grow at home. With so many uses, it’s the hemp of the fungi kingdom.
Stropharia mycelium is now running at Heritage Farm. Heritage is becoming Mycopolitan’s hub for outdoor mycological research and will soon be our pickup location for everything you’ll need to grow mushrooms in your yard or patio. Farmer Adrian Galbraith-Paul, the interns, and volunteers have all been helping Brian and I to introduce fungi into the thriving community of lifeforms that co-exist on the 3-acre Philadelphia estate. We’re looking forward to the Fall when our first products– shitake logs and stropharia spawn bags– will be available for pickup.
happy mycelium running onto new woodchips
stropharia spawn bed and root cellar
burlap spawn bags chilling in the cellar
burlap before and after spawning
To protect mycelium from extreme temperatures, we built a sort of miniature “root” cellar for our stropharia spawn. Adjacent to the cellar is a shallow bed where we will expand generations of stropharia mycelium, then bag and drag it into the cellar for storage. Every Spring we’ll lay down virgin woodchips and throw in healthy stropharia mushrooms and mycelium to keep the genetics fresh, diverse, and adaptive so mushrooms will thrive in any garden.
Chicken Mushrooms 