Mushrooms

Last year some time I decided that growing mushrooms sounded like a fun hobby. Some permaculture site I was looking at for some reason was advertising a "home mushroom growing course", and I thought:

"Yes! I shall learn the permaculture way to grow mushrooms. That sounds like a good use of my time."

It wasn't.

If you are thinking about growing mushrooms, and wondering if forking out $400 for a fancy permaculture course means you'll have the best grounding in mushroom growing, I have this piece of advice for you:

Don't.

Your introduction to mushroom growing should involve a pre-prepared pack and short course that, all together, costs around $100 max. 

This is because growing mushrooms is more like brewing beer than growing vegetables, and you can easily blow out any budget (monetary or time) you might think you're setting for yourself, and then discover that you actually find it all a bit too much work, really, and you don't want to do it.

I just want to say that mushrooms are surprisingly hard work.

Especially if you happen to be a "stick it in the dirt and see what happens" kind of gardener, as I am.

Even the easiest, quick-and-dirty method of growing mushrooms takes more time and attention than any of the other edible things I have growing about the place, every step is fraught with peril, I never know if I've reached a point where I've failed or if I need to hold on for another few days (or if there's something else I should be doing with the slab of fungus festering in my bathroom right now)...

And then when you actually get the mushrooms, you have to find a way to eat them relatively soon or it's all for nothing. I'm currently in a "who has time to cook? I'll just make a sandwich" phase of my existence, and in the meantime I have these huge clusters of mushrooms that may be all I have to show for all the money and effort I've poured into this misguided project.

Sure, in theory I could preserve them - but if I currently can't get my act together to make a simple pasta dish, the odds that I'll work out how to sterilize a jar and make a suitable brine are slim to none.

I should have known I wouldn't get around to eating them in good time. After all, it's not long ago that I grew a bunch of sweet potatoes the size of soccer balls* because I just couldn't be bothered harvesting them, and I figured they'd be safe enough in the ground. 

They've been in my pantry for a couple of months now. I should probably do something about them...

*Size 3 soccer balls, but soccer balls nonetheless