How to Ruin a Mushroom Harvest 😣!

in #ecotrain6 years ago

Completely gutted, I may have ruined my black trumpet harvest, but I learned an important lesson...

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I don't know if you can see it, zoom into the above photo and tell me if all those green and white specs aren't some kind of Mold growing there!

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This summer was great for learning about mushrooms, they were all over the place and they were growing in masses!!! I taught myself to indentify black trumpets and find where they grow rather easily. This yieled in what I thought was a nice first harvest. I even made a drying rack for it, but what I didn't know was that all that rain and humidity we've been hit with wasn't going to help dry these mushrooms...

We managed to have a couple meals with fresh trumpets and we wanted to save the rest of the harvest for later use. I thought we shouldn't eat all the mushrooms right away because our bodies aren't really used to wild foods, and thought it wise to slowly introduce new mushrooms into our system to make sure there was no alergic reaction.

We had been fine, and wanted more. Yesterday, I wen into my shed, where I hung our precious little mushrooms, to check on them. It had been almost three weeks and they were still very soft... Something was telling me that it shouldn't be that way.

I took a couple trumpets off the tray to examine them a little closer, there was this white and green sparkly texture on the outer skin.

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That's when I started getting worried.... is that mold? Are they all like that?.... I think I messed them up... NO!!!!!

Let's see, I took the whole drying tray down from where it was hanging, and they were, every single one of them, covered in this sparkly dusts of green and white... so sad! I was so looking forward to having a fancy mushroom meal with my father who's in town for a month.

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The tray


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Most of them ended up being covered, inside and out.


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So sad... but it was a lesson for sure!


What did I learn in this whole drying and growing mold experiment?

  • The tray was fine, but I could have made a sort cube where whatever is drying there is protected from critters wanting to eat what I'm trying to save for a later date. (Mostly just something I was worried about, nothing seemed to want to get at our mushrooms this time around!)

  • Ventilation, the shed I put them in has a little airflow, as I never closed the top of two of the walls when we built it, but is wasn't enough, not in this humid climate. Perhaps instead of this cube idea, I should make a screened in shelter, with a door and all where we can hang our drying trays out of the rain but in the open air.

  • Sunlight, with more sunlight they would have actually dryed up before the mold even realized these mushrooms were there for the taking!

Conclusion: I need to build a screened in structure (with a door and all), large enough to hang a bunch of drying trays, out of the rain, in the breeze with a clear roof!

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Oh what a shame! So many of them too!!! Thanks for sharing and what you would do differently next time. I think you're right, the humidity did them in. Sun drying (heating) them may have prevented this. Thanks for this so folks can learn from your experience. Love this platform!

Yeah... It was a lot of them! I really would be happy to find out one day my experience has helped somebody, that is one of the main things I like about our beloved Steemit platform!!! Lots of people helping eachother out.

Thanks @squirrelbait!

So sad for you @senorcoconut and the mushrooms lol Maybe you should read up on solar dryers. I've seen some ideas on other blogs but can't find one right now :(

Thanks stevn-patrick.. here's one I'd been looking into a while ago and never built!!

http://naturewitch.blogspot.com/2008/10/solar-food-dehydrator.html?m=1

It might have been your blog where I read about solar dehydrator lol this one looks familiar.

Yeah maybe... I had written yhis bit a long while ago from a UK site who built it: https://offgridders.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/build-a-solar-dehydrator/

a fan in your shed to increase the air flow might help.
At least you got a couple of meals.

True true, I did get a couple meals in!!! My first year dabbling in mushrooms too. We have no electricity, but I could have gotten a solar fan, great idea thank you @andre-ager

Apparently direct sunlight might burn the vitamins.
You could also dry them in an oven at 40 to 50 degree Celsius, or, to save energy, you could use the rest heat after baking a cake or bread. In that case, a thermometer comes in handy.

Lol, yes! I like using the left over heat in the over after cooking sonething, that's brilliant. Thanks for the info about the sun possibly killing the vitamines, I'll take that into account.

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The mushrooms are very delicate. They grow in a certain temperature and humidity balance. Ventilation and sunlight are also very important to grow mushrooms. I put my mushrooms in the dark yesterday. I will take it out in 20 days and share the situation in here. Never give up! Next time you will have a delicious meal ;)

Thanks for that... unfortunately I will have to wait till next chantrelle season for thay meal. We are thinking about growing our own mushrooms at some point for sure too. Good luck with yours in 20 days.

Ah, you live and learn, huh?

Yeah for sure!

what a shame! I am glad you got to enjoy some of the bounty before mold set in. I had a similar issue that you did when drying in one of the sheds so I've been there once or twice myself. :(

I think your idea is a good one. We have a shelter similar to what you are describing but it has a heavy roof for shade/rain protection and isn't screened in(yet). It works great, we've dried all of our onions, garlic and racks of other food in there successfully this year.

Ok this is great to know, so I probably could get away with a metal roof structure like yours too. Thanks for your experience!

But yes, at least we enjoyed a little bit of the bounty and theu were delicious!

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