Badgers badgers mushrooms mushrooms

Well, OK, no badgers. Our last organic gardening class was all about growing mushrooms. In a plastic bag, I placed alternating layers of boiled wheat straw, and two types of white gunk of ‘shroom spores (because, given the choice of one or the other type of edible mushrooms, I replied “yes”), inoculated in wheat and sorghum.

Mycelium? I’ll get up to speed on this.

The problem is that now, equivalent of early December for you northern-hemispherians, trying to maintain germination temp of20-24°C (68-75.2°F) inside your single-brick uninsulated Uruguayan house presents, um, challenges.

I have found a solution, but it won’t arrive in time for this batch: ebay > temperature controllers > free shipping from Hong Kong / China. Build a little insulated enclosure, connect an incandescent light bulb inside to the TC and chau (ciao in Italian), let the electronics do the heavy lifting.

Worth pursuing: while any mushrooms (much less fresh) were scarce here when we arrived five years ago, you can usually buy fresh now, but freaking expensive.

The exercise triggered an avalanche of other “project” ideas: aquaponics, which involves in my case explorations of solar panels and related electronics (again, eBay), since interruption of grid electricity in the country is not an emergency in the eyes of those who fix it. Fish make for awesome fertilizer, but I don’t really want fish I’m raising to eat to become soil amendments because of an electrical outage.

One of these days I may actually DO something. Stay tuned 😉