Fungi are amazing. They are neither plants nor animals. But the are VERY important to plants and animals, including us humans! Explore fungi and the mushrooms they produce inside PS 48 and in the school garden. Fungi keep us healthy! Can you find fungi outside? Maybe on a tree or in the soil. Do you eat any fungi? Yum! Watch and learn as the PS 48 student gardeners farm mushrooms!
Explore the different skills you need to learn when creating a mushroom farm from a tour of Setas Mushrooms! They grow so many different edible mushrooms so that we can cook and eat delicious and healthy meals!
PS 48 students are creating spaces in the garden for growing fungi. Fungi help enrich the soil to make it healthy for plants to grow. Plus lots of other reasons! Thank you Fungi Foundation for donating the mushroom grow kit!
We will explore different ways to grow edible mushrooms outdoors.
One way is to take our indoor mushroom grow kits outside to grow in the garden.
Another way is to use sawdust spawn to grow in straw as the substrate (material that provides moisture, nutrients, and, energy).
A third way is to use sawdust spawn to grow mushrooms in compost
A fourth way is to add mushroom spawn (mycelia) to our vegetable garden beds mixed with straw. This helps the soil stay moist and adds nutrients for the vegetables to grow!
Let's watch this video. We will learn how to grow MORE mushrooms from our indoor mushroom grow kit that already fruited (mycelia that grew into the mushrooms we know and can harvest). We will learn how to:
placing the kit in a shady space in the garden
bury the whole kit in the garden soil,
break up the kit and then to sprinkle into our garden beds with straw and wood mulch
and more!
Which way should we continue growing mushrooms? Any other ideas? It's up to you! Which way do you think will work best? It's time to experiment!
We will grow mushrooms by spreading straw (substrate), mushroom spawn, straw, mushroom spawn, and straw in layers, like lasagna! That's a lot of words with the letter "S!" Do you see the pattern? A = straw B = mushroom spawn The pattern is ABAB. Does this make sense? :)
We will grow almond agaricus mushroom bed using compost. Compost is nutritious (yummy!) for the plants that we will grow in the soil. This compost is made right here in the city we live: New York City! It is made from food scraps and other decaying plant material by the NYC Department of Sanitation.
We will do these steps:
Build the base by pouring and spreading evenly 4 bags of compost into the raised bed.
Break up the almond agaricus mushroom spawn in egg sized pieces. We will NOT crumble the spawn into small pieces! :)
Plant the egg sized pieces of almond agaricus mushroom spawn 4 to 6 inches apart.
Cover up the almond agaricus mushroom spawn with 4 more bags of compost. Spread the compost evenly on top of the almond agaricus mushroom spawn pieces.
Mulch, or cover, the compost and the almond agaricus mushroom spawn with straw. Cover with 4 inches of straw. This will keep moisture inside the mushroom bed.
Start video at 3:18 for the steps we will follow in our school garden.
Learn about different ways to grow mushrooms alongside the different plants we grow in the garden. We are growing Italian Oyster mushrooms in straw that covers up the soil around our vegetable plants. This added straw protects the soil by keeping it moist, adds nutrients to the soil, and keeps weed plants away (plants we don't want growing!). The mushrooms also helps the soil structure to grow stronger and healthier vegetables!
Which ideas do you like? Why? Let's try!
Here are the directions for growing the mushrooms indoors.
Student mushroom farmers prepare mushroom spawn to grow on toilet paper.
We will learn how to make mushroom fruiting blocks inside our classroom! We will inoculate a growing medium called wood pellets a bag called a fruiting block. This means mixing mushroom spawn with the growing medium. Then we will incubate the mushroom spawn, which means allow it to slowly spread and grow throughout all the growing medium. Finally, after a few weeks and incubating, we will fruit the mushroom blocks. We will do this by cutting the bags to let the mushrooms breathe and fruit. They will be ready to grow new mushrooms by releasing spores...unless we harvest the mushrooms first to eat them, just like we do with fruits and vegetables in the garden. Who's ready?!?!?
Here are the detailed directions we will use to grow Oyster Mushrooms in our classroom. Who's ready to cultivate mushrooms?!?!?
Here are the detailed directions we will use to grow Lion's Mane in our classroom. It's gonna be a fun time watching the mushrooms grow and fruit!
We can't wait to start growing edible shitake mushrooms at PS 48. Read the information from our partner, New York Restoration Project, below to prepare for growing mushrooms in the PS 48 Garden!
We will grow mushrooms to eat (yum!) using straw. The straw is like the "food" that the mushroom uses for energy to grow. When the mushroom is ready to fruit, the part of the mushroom we eat will emerge from the holes in the sides of the bucket.
Let's make sure our hands are clean and sanitized for this! We will use nitrile gloves to prevent contaminiation.
Did you know that mushroom are an innovative way to recycle materials (like paper, oil, and plastic) that humans produce (make), use, and discard, or no longer need anymore. They can even help the environment. They can clean up pollution caused by they different things that we create and do.
This is called bioremediation. Bio means "life," and remediation means "to fix" or "to clean up". It's using living organisms (like superheroes!) to clean up pollution that humans make. When humans use mushrooms (fungi) for bioremediation we call it mycoremediation. The mushrooms act like nature's 'cleanup crews' to clean our water, soil, and the air around us that all plants, animals and fungi rely on to survive.
Now let's experiment with mycoremediation by using discarded (no longer needed) paper that we shredded.
We will examine mycoremediation using oyster mushroom spawn. We will use the brochure from Mushroom Mountain. Thank you, Mushroom Mountain, for creating this activity after lots of experimentation!
Thank you, Mushroom Mountain, for this recycling using mushrooms resource, and all the other resources.
Thank you, Mushroom Mountain, for this coffee grinds resource, and all the other resources.