`BEAUTIFUL COMPANIONS'
Growing mushrooms at home is a creative way to bring more life into one's surroundings
Phuong Tran first saw signs of life in her oyster mushroom grow kit on Day 7. It was a growth reminiscent of a spiky massage ball — nubbly, rubbery and soft grey. “It's super exciting because this is a rectangular box of what looks like just soil and all of a sudden … you're like, `Oh my God, it's coming to life,'” says the Toronto food blogger (@foodiefork on Instagram).
Once the mushrooms started emerging from the X that Tran had snipped in the plastic covering and spritzed with water a few times each day, growth was explosive.
She thought of their tremendous overnight spurt on Day 9 as a kind of puberty: “I would joke, `Oh look, it's becoming like a little teenager.'” Unlike awkward teenage years, which feel as though they could last forever, she didn't have to wait long for her fledgling fungi to be ready for harvest.
Within the space of two weeks, Tran was eating homegrown oyster mushrooms for breakfast, sautéed, with toast and eggs. The “huge pride” she felt in her first foray into growing food of any kind made the rewards all the sweeter.
“They felt a little different, but it's probably because I was really proud because I grew them. If I were to blind taste test it against the mushrooms I buy, I don't know if there would be a difference,” says Tran, laughing.
Since she's been working from home during the pandemic, Tran was able to chase the indirect sunlight in her living room, relocating the kit to prime positions throughout the day. It spent its mornings beside her on a west-facing work desk and was moved next to the couch for the afternoons. Wherever it was, it was always in her line of sight.
Originally from Montreal, Tran is a self-described city person: “I've never lived out in any kind of remote area,” she says. “I've never been very close to farming.” Like many Canadians, she made the most of lockdown by trying her hand at food cultivation — developing a new awareness of the ways it can get to the plate in the process.
More than half of Canadians grew their own food last year, according to an October 2020 study by Dalhousie University's Agrifood Analytics Lab. Nearly one in five (17.4 per cent) for the first time. Seed suppliers and nurseries fielded extraordinary demand due to this record number of pandemic gardeners, and this year is shaping up to be similar.
Interest in growing mushrooms has been increasing “big time,” says Willoughby Arevalo, Vancouver-based mycologist, artist and author of DIY Mushroom Cultivation.
Arevalo took an interest in mushrooms when he was four years old, his parents say, and has been sharing his skills and knowledge for more than a decade. Along with parenting, making art and playing music, he considers it one of the most rewarding aspects of his life.
“It was always this weirdo thing to do and now it's really hip all of a sudden,” he says, laughing. “So it's a strange shift but I welcome it because fungi are so wonderful and so underappreciated and so poorly understood by the general public that the more we can understand them and connect with them, relate with them, the greater our interactions can be and we can really thrive together.”
While in DIY Mushroom Cultivation Arevalo outlines his philosophy and process, he sees ready-tofruit kits, such as the one Tran used to grow her oyster mushrooms as an excellent first step.
“It's relatively low-barrier. They're more expensive than making your own once you have the system set up to do so, but they're not that expensive,” says Arevalo (they typically range from $25 to $35).
“And it can really bring a sense of amazement to be able to share space with these mushrooms as they fruit. Actually witnessing their growth, getting bigger every single day, can be really dramatic at times and very inspiring.”
Jessica Snider, co-owner of Grow Mushrooms Canada, an online mycological supply store based in Sayward, B.C., says demand for grow kits has been especially high during the pandemic. “Last spring, when the lockdowns and measures started in place, our sales went through the roof,” she says.
Initially, they struggled to keep up with production, but sales have since levelled out and they're prepared for another busy spring season. Ready-to-fruit kits — including oyster, reishi and turkey tail — are a year-round staple.
They also sell plug spawn — inoculated dowels that can be tapped into logs — and liquid culture (mycelium, the fungal network mushrooms grow from, suspended in broth), which comes in a syringe that people can inject into a bag of rye grain to start their own culture and expand their cultivation into pasteurized straw or wood chips.
Grow kits are essentially mycelium growing in its substrate: a material it eats and is housed in, which can range from hardwood sawdust supplemented with wheat bran and rye grains to spent coffee grounds from a local café. Maintaining high humidity is key, which is why misting regularly is critical.
“The main ingredient for mushrooms is they need a humid environment,” says Snider. “So you can do it all year round in your home. It's very simple. You don't need lots of equipment for that.”
A biologist with a background in wild mushrooms, Snider cites the health benefits of certain types for their increased popularity, as well as the mystique surrounding them in general. “If you get that mushroom fever, you're gone,” she says, laughing. “There's this allure to mushrooms that pulls people in and it definitely captivated me many years ago. And now it's like I'm working for the mushrooms and propagating them.”
If you spend any time online exploring #mushroomcultivation, you'll likely come across some novel setups, such as grow kits kept on nightstands and otherwise in proximity to their caretakers. Arevalo cautions that mushrooms produce many tiny spores, which can irritate the lungs. Resilient, easy-to-grow oysters are especially prolific spore producers.
“There's a condition called mushroom worker's lung, which is basically an accumulation of mushroom spores in the lungs that causes irritation. And I have felt it,” says Arevalo.
The best way for home growers to manage this, he says, is to pick the mushrooms when they're in their prime.
“The caps of oysters start with edges curved in a little bit and as they open up, they'll start to flare upward. And when they get really mature, they'll flare upward and be wavy,” Arevalo says. “You want to pick them when the mushrooms are decent-sized, but the edges of the cap are still a little bit curled under, and before they're flaring upward in order to prevent them putting literally millions to billions of spores into your indoor space.”
In DIY Mushroom Cultivation, Arevalo dispels the assumptions that you need to have specialized laboratory equipment, dedicated spaces and wooded land in order to grow mushrooms without the aid of a kit. His one-bedroom basement suite in East Vancouver — which he shares with his partner, fellow artist and educator Isabelle Kirouac, their four-year-old daughter, Uma, mycelium for art projects and fruiting mushrooms for them to eat — is proof.
Arevalo's relationship with cultivated mushrooms — his “beautiful companions” — is reciprocal. His book may be called DIY Mushroom Cultivation, but the truth, he writes, “is that we Do It Together.”
One of his photos in the book illustrates this interspecies community perfectly: a bag filled with blush-pink oyster mushrooms and their substrate hanging from a shower caddy, a rubber duckie, loofah and rubber toy snake as neighbours. Growing mushrooms at home is more than a means to an end: it's a relationship that can thrive.
“Part of that is recognizing the fungi as living beings with their own awareness, their own sensitivity, their own intelligence and consciousness, and their own intention. And I don't think it's at all a stretch to say that,” Arevalo says.
“And recognizing that in growing mushrooms in our home, we are cohabitating with these beings, finding ways to share space in ways that can be mutually agreeable and mutually beneficial — ways that we can care for them and in exchange, receive their gifts.”