Category — Mushrooms

Paul Stamets, mushroom maven, from Maria Keating on Vimeo.
Also see alternative HD High Definition version on YouTube.
Paul Stamets at the Hollyhock workshop.

Maria Keating, our in-house bug lady, recently took a very inspirational five day mushroom identification course with mycologist Paul Stamets, at HollyHock, an education retreat center on Cortes Island, B.C.  The fall course, now an annual event, was packed with information on the many fungal innovations and products that Paul’s company, Fungi Perfecti, specializes in. Paul’s latest book is titled ‘Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World’.

Link to Paul Stamets’ website, Fungi Perfecti, here.

Link to Hollyhock website here.

Watch a talk by Paul Stamets on the website TED, titled ‘6 ways mushrooms can save the world’.
18 minutes long.

Our Maria is not just a Bug Lady, she’s a ‘Mushroom Lady’ as well. Hidden amongst the large squash leaves in the Youth Garden are some wonderful edible mushrooms she started last spring. Maria shows us how she grew her King Stropharia – Garden Giants.

See this piece about Garden Giants. ‘Grow edible mushrooms in your vegetable garden!’ By Carolyn Herriot

Maria’s ‘babies’ have finally arrived in large numbers. Carefully watched and nurtured since April, 2007, these Shiitake mushrooms are ready for harvest. They have grown on oak logs that were culled from Stanley Park after a devastating storm and delivered to us by the Vancouver Park Board. Hard to believe that anyone, that’s us, can grow such wonderful fungi in a city garden.

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Tika Aryal teaches farmers in Nepal how to grow mushrooms to improve their livelihood. His attached report describes his education program.

“In Nepal, mushroom cultivation began in 1976. Nowadays it is a fast growing business due to its high profit. Farmers can get output within one month from ‘pleurotus’ cultivation. Nepal is also a country where mushroom can be cultivated throughout the year under natural environmental conditions.

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