Growing Mushrooms in gardens and woodland

Rhyze on tour: We’re coming to deliver a workshop in the highlands! We’re really excited to come spend a weekend at Abriachan Community Woodland on the north shore of Loch Ness.

This workshop will explore a variety of different ways mushrooms can be integrated into different woodland or garden contexts, using the resources available to you. Mushrooms are an excellent addition to any garden design or small woodland management plan: some build soil and make nutrients available to plants nearby; others thrive in dark shady spaces where plants might struggle; they provide a rare harvest of protein and fruit at times of year when veg pickings are meagre and can turn waste and byproducts into food. This workshop explores a variety of methods for integrating different species of mushrooms into a garden or woodland. It will cover:

• The basics of mycology and mushroom cultivation, demystifying key terms and equipment.
• How to propagate mycelium onto cardboard to make free spawn
• How to grow Oyster mushrooms on straw in containers or beds
• How to companion plant Wine cap mushrooms or Elm Oysters in vegetable beds.
• How to grow Almond agaricus mushrooms on compost in polytunnels
• How to grow Nameko, Oyster, Shiitake and many other species on logs or tree stumps

Participants will leave with a booklet outlining the techniques described in the workshop, a bag of dowel spawn for inoculating logs and some cardboard spawn of either oyster or wine caps.

This workshop is quite long, we’ll have a good break for lunch so please bring a packed lunch. If you have any accessibility concerns please get in touch.