River Cottage

I would suggest a trawl through the internet. Different mushrooms will do better on different logs. I know that there is a fairly tight time period between felling and seeding, unless you strilise them as shown on the show.

The time line won't be a problem, I have growing trees on the site which I can fell at any time.

We bought some Mushroom log spores in a package from Ebay.

Spent hours drilling out 4 logs and now, even 4 years later still have bare logs !!

I have had mushroom logs for years when i was in the UK and they produced loads of mushrooms. some are harder than others but shittake and oysters are a sure bet. make sure you use freshly cut oak or birch logs and only cut them in the fall when all the sugars are drawn back into the wood or else there will be nothing for the mushrooms to live on. 

Also make sure you put enough dowels into the logs and seal the holes with wax.

The trick is impregnate the logs and leave for about 6 months under a black bag or bury under leaves then take them out and then completely submerge them in water for about 12 - 24 hours. remove logs from the water and place in a sheltered spot and mist them or water them as often as possible. about a week after you complete this process you will start to see little pin heads appearing all over the logs....its then just a matter  of waiting till they get to the size you like but its really a very simple thing.

I have never seen mushroom spores for sale in france but if you have relatives or friends in the uk who can buy online (defo not from ebay!) then get them sent over to you...its definately worth it. I started of with about 15 logs and i never ran out of fresh champignon!

hope this helped my friend

Jandy, thanks for the information. Only thing I would be slightly worried about is sending the spores to another country. They may have a different variety or sub variety in France, and this might contaminate the local stock.

never thought of this but i think with shittake its unlikely there wold be local stock around anyway so its probably ok. There is one other thing you could do as i did and thats to grow oysters indoors with toilet rolls, very effective method and produces loads of mushys. you need to buy the inoculated grain for this and its relatively cheap. 

i just soak the toilet rolls and pour some grain into the tube, whack it into a plastic bag and store in a dark cupboard for 6 weeks, when you take them out the bog roll will look like a white fur ball. open the top of the bag and mist regularly and you will soon have plenty of mushrooms.

I don't mind growing mushrooms in the garden, but don't want to introduce any into the woods, as we have a good variety of fungi there already, including some quite unusual ones occasionally. I don't grow mushrooms, but sometimes pick oyster mushrooms in the woods if they turn up.

Thanks for that though.

I purchased some mushroom spores (pellet type things) which we had to drill holes in logs for them to grow, the instructions on the packet said to put inside a bin liner and put into a dark warm cupboard for around 3 months so that the mushroom spores would grow and then to put them outside under some bark chippings.

We followed all the instructions bu after 2 years we still haven't had any mushrooms. but i have been told that it could take up to around 5 years, if this is right its a long time to produce a few mushrooms!

I wondered whether to put the logs somewhere inside the greenhouse, should they be watered?

I would think it would help to keep them moist, certainly. though not waterlogged (excuse the pun).

I think you have to get them wet by putting them in water for a short time then taking them out. That seems to stimulate them to produce fruit. Jandy gives the method above.