Growing Morels

[MeatintheFreezer]

I have always loved to eat a fresh batch of morels with a mess of crappie fillets. I am pretty good at rounding up the crappie fillets, but the morels have eluded me for the most part. My main problem is that when ever I am hunting for mushrooms I keep thinking about how I should be fishing, and never spend enough time to find many. Most of my spots are on the lake, so I always take the boat to get there. This only exaggerates my anxiety to get back on the crappie.

Last year I discovered that you can purchase mushroom spawn online and build a simple habitat in your back yard. I bought a sack full of this stuff and followed all the directions of composting and treatment. I am anxiously awaiting a bumper crop of morels in a few months so big & healthy I will have to chop them down with a hatchet. I bet they might even become a such nuisance that I will end up weed wacking them all down.

In all seriousness, has anyone ever bought one of these grow kits for morels? I am just curious about the success rate and what I should really be expecting.

By the way, if mushrooms do pop up I have armed security guards and 24 hour surveillance covering the entire area!

[Bird Watcher]

At my previous home, I would always dump the water out of the bowl that I soaked them in after picking in loamy spot on the edge of the yard. After about 3 years of dumping water in the same place they started coming up.

[MeatintheFreezer]

Yeah, assuming that this kit I bought produces, I plan on doing that same thing.

[jdmidwest]

Morels are funny creatures. They are really picky about where they want to grow. And there is a narrow window of growth requiring the right amount of moisture, temp, and light.

I don't know if a kit will produce any mushrooms, but feel free to keep us posted.

[bfishn]

At my previous home, I would always dump the water out of the bowl that I soaked them in after picking in loamy spot on the edge of the yard. After about 3 years of dumping water in the same place they started coming up.

I knew an old couple back home that did that too. They even let me pick their yard when I was a kid.

I've always wondered about those kits, please let us know your experience.

[Wayne SW/MO]

I was surprised to learn that net bags will help perpetuate morels. It seems the paper bags we used when I was young were counter productive. This makes me wonder if spending some time shaking the bag around the area before leaving might increase the harvest at proven sites?

[ness]

I use a net bag, but I've always kinda wondered how much is fact and how much is not on these morel stories. Bird Watcher -- that's the first confirmed report of the water idea working. I've seen the kits but have never heard of any success stories (except form the sellers). I do seem to recall it was more involved that some other methods of growing mushrooms. I'm anxious to hear how this works.

[MeatintheFreezer]

It is somewhat involved during warm weather, but not to bad. You have to add a small amount of vegetable compost every week and keep it stirred up. The instructions were pretty strict on how much composting to do as you do not want the dirt to get to hot and kill the spores. No fertilizer at all, no dairy or animal scraps, and keep it moist.

I did all that religiously through out the summer last year. Now I am in a waiting period until the little buggers start popping up. I will post pics if anything sprouts.

[Old plug]

I have a friend takes some moral and crushes them in his hand and then sprinkles them around dead tree roots in the woods them around dead tree. roots in the woods. he swears buy it claims they will come up next year.

[bfishn]

There used to be a place up around Carthage on 71 that (claimed to) grow them indoors. There was always a huge pile of wood chips outside when they were open. Their website offered only a bottled morel cooking oil, no fresh or frozen morels. Like the spore kits I saw advertised, I always wondered how legit it really was.