Experience In Growing Forest Mushrooms At Their Summer Cottage

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

A woman of Balzac's age, who bought a house in our village three years ago, behaved rather unusual in the eyes of local residents from the first day. A team of workers, brought from the city, immediately set up a tall, blank board fence along the entire perimeter of its site. This woman almost did not communicate with anyone. She drove the car herself. In a word, she behaved completely independently … The inhabitants were at a loss: what is this lady doing? Although there were rumors that she was a professor at some scientific institute.

My meetings with her were accidental and consisted only in the fact that several times I stepped to the side of the road, when she, not paying attention to anyone, rolled along the road in a dark blue Audi.

Since we never said a single word to her, I was simply amazed to see her on a cloudy September day at the gate of my house.

After saying hello, for some reason she looked at me searchingly and gave out:

- I heard that you are a great specialist in making doors. Will you undertake to make and install a door in my house?

I was even more surprised … How does she know that I make doors, because she does not communicate with anyone in the village. And although this question was spinning on my tongue, I did not become curious, but only answered evasively:

- It depends on which door you need.

“A simple plank safe door,” she explained without hesitation.

I had to tell her how the proposed door would be arranged and how it would look. He named the price. It seems that everything suited her, because she did not hesitate to agree.

… I knocked up the door, installed it in the opening of the customer's house, and as soon as the last platband nailed down, she paid off and, thanking for the work, invited me to the table:

“We must wash the new door,” she said, looking at me kindly.

We went to the veranda, where the table was set. Apart from a bottle of cognac, there were several snacks on the table, among which a dish with fried porcini mushrooms looked very appetizing.

… We drank to ensure that the doors served for a long time and regularly.

- Purchased? - I asked, prying on another mushroom with a fork, since no one in the village had ever seen the hostess go to the forest to pick mushrooms.

- No, these are their own, home-grown … - she answered somehow casually.

- What do they grow in your beds?

- By themselves, of course, mushrooms do not grow, but I breed them, - she smiled and, after a pause, explained: - I am a mycologist by profession, that is, I deal with mushrooms. And although no one has yet managed to artificially completely repeat the natural symbiosis of the mycelium of the fungus with the roots of trees, something has been done in this direction.

And this is what she said.

… The overwhelming majority of valuable mushrooms are closely related to certain tree species, forming with them a fungus root, or mycorrhiza. Therefore, these mushrooms are called mycorrhizal. The mycorrhizal fungi itself, although with great difficulty, can nevertheless exist without a tree, but it never forms fungi directly. Why this is happening is still an insoluble problem.

If we recall the experience of our ancestors, then they also tried to grow mushrooms. And, having failed, of course, they asked themselves the question: if mushrooms do not grow in an artificial environment, then is it possible to recreate them at least approximately similar forest conditions in which they grew. Let's say, according to the soil composition, herbage, the nature of the trees and shrubs around.

And at the end of the 19th century, the practical creation of such conditions began. One of the main methods of growing mushrooms was this … Overripe porcini mushrooms or mushrooms were poured into a wooden bowl with rainwater. It was kept in it for about a day, then stirred and filtered through a rare tissue. And this water, containing numerous spores of fungi, was watered in advance prepared areas.

Another method was used … Small (the size of a matchbox) slices of mycelium dug out with all precautions where the mushrooms grew were transferred to the prepared areas. They were carefully placed in shallow pits and covered with slightly moistened bedding on top. Then they looked after the planting. If the weather was wet, the soil was moistened only when planting. If it was dry, then the litter was slightly moistened from a watering can.

- So they tried to grow mushrooms in the old days, - my interlocutor finished this part of her monologue.

… I listened, as they say, with my mouth open. It was all a complete revelation for me. Probably, I, like many others, have a purely consumerist attitude to mushrooms: I went into the forest, collected everything that was found, brought home cooked or prepared - and that's it. But to grow wild mushrooms? I heard about this for the first time.

- At the present time, - the voice of the hostess brought me out of my reverie, - for the cultivation of forest mushrooms, in addition to those already known for a long time, a slightly different technology is used. Namely, using ripe mushroom caps.

… Pieces of caps of such mushrooms are laid out on the prepared forest floor. After 3-4 days, these pieces are removed, and the bedding is moistened. Or they take already dried pieces of mushroom caps and place them directly under the forest floor. Or they act as follows: in mature mushrooms (white, saffron milk caps), the tubular part of the cap is separated, crushed into slices, each of which is up to two cubic centimeters in size. Dry while stirring for one and a half to two hours. After that, using a wooden spatula, lift the top layer of the forest floor and lay two or three slices of the mushroom under it. After that, the litter is carefully compacted and watered with water.

- Usually, single mushrooms grow in a year. And even then not always. A lot, if not all, depends on the weather, the condition of the soil, surrounding vegetation. As you can see, after several unsuccessful attempts, I was still lucky! Mushrooms grow on my site. True, for this I had to try very hard … In several places I prepared different soil, planted some bushes. In a word, she created several variants of a suitable biocenosis. I brought mycelium from our laboratory and planted it. And to my delight, although a very small part of the mycelium nevertheless took root and began to bear fruit.

- And where do they grow with you? - I could not resist.

- And over there, in a birch grove, - she pointed to the farthest corner of the site.

… From the window of the veranda where we were sitting, small trees were visible, rather high dense grass.

Catching my gaze, she added:

- In order that no one encroached on my mushrooms, I put up such an impressive fence.

Of course, I have heard that sometimes mushrooms grow in summer cottages. By the way, my neighbors often gather butter, honey agarics, and sometimes porcini mushrooms under a spreading oak tree. However, growing mushrooms like potatoes or beets? Something new … Although, on the other hand, this clearly confirms the indisputable fact that the possibilities of nature are truly inexhaustible, which we sometimes do not even suspect.

Alexander Nosov