Life Reboot

“It was one time…” (Fart in a Jar Martin)

…what exactly do I have in this jar?

Mushrooms.

I know they are packed full of goodness; and as I’ve aged I’ve found myself more ameniable to eating them…still, they are not a food I crave or even enjoy. That said, they are vital to switching away from a meat based diet (again). There’s a lot of value in that.

Mushrooms are expensive, relatively. I tend to rate the expense of food based mostly on the price / kg scale. Vegetables, beans, grains and staples sit right down at the low end of this scale. Meat is higher up on the scale but (for me) provides benefits that often see me craving it.

I’ve been vegetarian before, and vegan for a couple of years. It’s a hard diet to maintain…so if you can…respect.

Mushrooms are a great way to move to a vegetarian diet, but they are also expensive by any metric.

Sure, white caps are cheap enough, but they taste like carboard. If you want enoki, shitake, forest brown buttons, or oyster mushrooms…well, you better be middle class - if that’s a thing any more. I’ve seen prices of $55 / kg and higher for any of the less basic mushrooms. For a person who tries to keep the majority of their shopping list down to $5 / kg or lower, that’s un-obtainable.

But wait a moment…doesn’t this crap grow everywhere given half a chance? Yes…it does. Wherever there are rotting logs or straw, you will find mushrooms. Is that a pile of cow shit in the paddock…yes…and those are mushrooms growing out of it. Give them some pretty basic conditions and you can grow this stuff at home.

So what’s in the jar?

Well, it’s nothing more than some very cheap rye grass seed (bought at a local horse food supplier) which I innoculated with yellow oyster mushroom spore (2 grams). What you see is the result of simply waiting 2 weeks for the spore to do it’s thing. The supplies of spore I bought will allow me to do this 10 more times and cost only $50. I can also just propagate the spore myself for free.

Oh wait…where’s the mushrooms?

I’m glad you asked. There won’t be any of those for a few more weeks. I need to pasturize some sugarcane mulch, innoculate it with the grain spore (shown in the jars) and wait till it sprouts “fruiting bodies” - or what we call mushrooms.

In a few weeks, instead of 1L jars of grain filled with spores and their network I will have bags of sugarcane mulch, white with spore.

Then, when I open those up to this world filled with oxygen, they will begin sprouting fruiting bodies - mushrooms. I’m hoping to harvest about 1kg from each “log” I make. My costs will be well under $10 / kg if all goes to plan - which is 1/5th the cost at market.

The big secret here is this:

most of the cost of the market is simply middle men and the time it takes to store your product.

If you are willing to go back in time a little, become a home-steader, you can save a huge amount of money, eat vastly better food, and help heal our planet. Your mushrooms, pickles, ferments, etc will come from local products, really really local products.

It’s a bit of work, a bit of mind-space, a small cash investment, and a bit of learning. But it’s worth it over the long curve.

Here’s hoping in a few weeks I have some mushrooms to harvest.

Even if I fail, it’s all good compost for the garden.

White Fuzz