April 18: Learn mushroom cultivation and grow your own

By Kate Halstead, WSU Extension

mushroomSULTAN, Wash. – Whether you have a tiny backyard or hundreds of acres, growing edible mushrooms can be a great small-scale crop with the right techniques and a little patience. A workshop about growing edible mushrooms indoors and outdoors will be 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Saturday, April 18, at Ed’s Apples, 13420 339th Ave. SE (Rice Road) in Sultan.

Hosted by Washington State University Extension, the workshop costs $80 each or $125 per couple, which includes handouts, a box lunch (two for couples) and 100 shiitake mushroom plugs to take home. Prepaid registration must be received by April 14.

grow-mushrooms
During a recent workshop, Jim Gouin demonstrates how to sterilize and inoculate straw with oyster mushroom spawn. (Photo by Kate Halstead, WSU Extension)

Register online at http://mushrooms.brownpaper
tickets.com
or download the form at http://snohomish.wsu.edu/
mushroom-cultivation
and mail with a check. For more information, contact Kate Halstead at 425-357-6024 or khalstead@wsu.edu.

Topics and demonstrations will include: species that grow well in the local climate and forests; growing media such as log, stump, sawdust and straw culture; how to prepare and inoculate logs; care and harvest for optimum production; and low-tech processing and fast cultivation of oyster mushrooms indoors.

Instructor Jim Gouin is a staff mycologist with Fungi Perfecti, an Olympia-based company that specializes in home and commercial mushroom growing supplies. Gouin has a forestry background and teaches forest fungi cultivation workshops throughout North America.

Reasonable accommodations will be made for persons with disabilities and special needs who contact Karie Christensen at 600 128th St SE, Everett, Wash., 425-357-6039 or christensen4@wsu.edu at least two weeks before the event.

 

Contact:
Kate Halstead, WSU Snohomish County Extension, 360-794-6081, khalstead@wsu.edu