Owen Tallman of Hamilton gave a mushroom-growing workshop at Baltimore Woods in Marcellus recently. At left is a Phoenix mushroom grown from a strain Tallman developed.
Mushrooms love cool, dark places with no sun -- making them an ideal crop for Central New York winters.
Gardeners with no outside plants to tend are increasingly soothing their itchy green thumbs by growing mushrooms indoors.
For beginners and those who like instant gratification, oyster mushrooms are a good place to start. They grow quickly and easily in shelf-like clusters and have whitish gills that run down a small stem.
"It happens amazingly fast. It's a lot of fun to watch," said Owen Tallman, chief mushroom officer, The Imaginary Farmer LLC in Hamilton.
Tallman teaches workshops on growing mushrooms, sells growing kits and sells mushrooms at farmers markets and to area restaurants.
Tallman has developed his own strain of oyster mushroom trademarked Hantana Phoenix.
While walking in the woods of his farm in Hamilton, he found a single cap for what he thought was a pearl oyster. He cloned and began growing the mushroom, which he says has a "flavorful, strong pungent taste."
A student at the State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry ran a DNA profile and found that Tallman's mushroom was "virtually a perfect match for a Phoenix mushroom," which is native to cold climates, he said.
His discovery led to an online business selling mushroom kits, among other products.
Earning money for what started as a hobby "was just dumb luck," he said.
In the wild, the fungi that produce mushrooms grow on dead material, like decaying logs. But in the kitchen, mushrooms can grow on sawdust and coffee grounds.
Unlike plants, which absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, the metabolism of mushrooms "is more like ours. They want to get to lower carbon dioxide. They absorb oxygen," he said.
Mushrooms can be propagated two ways, through spores or mycelia networks.
"Everybody's heard of spores, but usually in cultivation we're interested in mycelium," he said.
Mycelium is the vegetative part of a fungus, consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like fibers. Mushrooms absorb nutrients through the mycelium.
Mycelium can grow far and fast. In eastern Oregon, the 2,400-year-old Armillaria ostoyae mushroom spans 2,200 acres, making it the largest organism in the world.
But mushrooms are also neat freaks and need sterile substrate to grow in.
"If the sawdust and coffee grounds are not really clean, bacteria and mold will eat" the mycelium, Tallman said.
That problem was solved by a mushroom grower on the West Coast, who found that hydrogen peroxide, if used in the right proportions, lets mushrooms grow outside a clean room environment.
To grow your own mushrooms, you need spawn -- any material impregnated with mycelium, such as grain, sawdust or small birch dowels. And you need substrate -- any kind of organic matter, such as sawdust, straw or newspapers. The type of substrate depends on the mushroom, Tallman said. Button mushrooms, for example, grow on manure and straw.
Most mushroom kits come already mixed, and all you have to add is water.
But that, Tallman said, is not as much fun, and you don't learn anything.
His kits contain spawn, sawdust pellets and a growing bag with built-in air filter. The customer adds fresh coffee grounds, water and hydrogen peroxide.
"You get to see the process from the very beginning," he said. "You'll see the fibers growing sometimes in 24 hours, but definitely in two to three days."
In summer's heat, the Phoenix mushroom will be ready for harvest in about six days. In winter, harvest will be in about 10 days, he said.
"It's such a blast to see someone order a kit and ... be bowled over by what an amazing phenomenon they're watching," he said.
Outdoors, he recommends growing mushrooms on compost or wood chips. To grow mushrooms in a log or tree stump, drill holes and then insert a birch dowel impregnated with spawn.
A mushroom "is an aggressive grower. It's tough and opportunistic. Give it a chance, and it will grow and flourish," he said.
Gardeners can grow many mushroom varieties. Shiitakes, for example, can take up to a year to fruit but will continue bearing fruit for as long as six years.
Some mushrooms have medicinal properties, such as Reishi, which has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for more than 2,000 years.
"All the gourmet mushrooms have medicinal properties," he said.
And Reishi mushrooms can "be sculpted in a way, almost like bonsai," he said.
Tallman said he knew nothing about mushrooms until about five years ago, when a friend interested in medicinal mushrooms gave him a catalog for Fungi Perfecti, a company founded by Paul Stamets, who has written several books about mushrooms.
In his book, "Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World," Stamets advocates mushrooms as a way to fight pollution and repair damaged soil.
Ecovative, a company outside Albany, sells dried-out mycelium to use as packing material.
"There's a lot of experimentation going on right now," Tallman said.
