• The Non-Green (R)evolution
• more notes at http://aa-vv.org/node/133

• Meet the site and analyze the garden from the 'fungamental' perspective (substrates, sun/shadow, wind, humidity, type of plants, trees, garden wastes, inhabitants, conditions for myco/perma-oriented creativity)
• Determine suitable, desirable mushroom varieties and locations for the next visit dedicated to the practical integration and association of mushrooms and plants.
• Inoculate some available logs for the indoor/outdoor colonization
• Sketch out the project's timeline, milestones and 'events'
• Harvest some more logs
• Theoretical research
• Process documentation along the way

• Logs
• Sawdust and wood chips (hardwood)
• Spawn
• Wood twist drill/14 mm 10 mm
• Beeswax
• Paintbrush
• Mallet (preferably with a rubber head)
• Heat source
• Some covering material for the logs to keep moist (transparent garbage bags or so)
• 3-4 flower pots (or any found containers, or Pflanz-taschen set) big enough to be used for putting 1/3 logs upright into it and keep indoor.
• Chainsaw
• Hydrogen peroxide (optional)
• Moisture meter/Feuchtigkeitsmesser (optional)

• Ash (2×100/20sm)
• Alder (1×100/20sm)
• Beech
• Birch

• 1 Changeable agaric mushroom, 50 inoculated plugs
• 1 Nameko, 50 inoculatedv plugs
• 1 Elm oyster mushroom, 50 inoculated plugs

• Changeable agaric/Beech, Birch and Alder

(Oak, Ash, Poplar, Willow, Edible chestnut – possible; Conifers - less)

• Nameko/Beech, Oak, Birch

(Poplar, Willow, healthy wood from fruit trees – possible)

• Elm oyster/Beech, Poplar, Linden (lime), Maple, Willow, Aspen, Alder and Birch.

(do not grow well on Oak)

Beginning of May: planting garden and mushrooms Inside: quickly growing. Multiple types, different methods Calendar of various results. Keeping track of what works:

• Wood type
• Mushroom type
• Location
• Method
• How to sit the logs, type of bed layered, content and construction

• Out the back, narrow, playground, different beds, i.e. multiple structures of layers, different logs. Burying some logs in the ground (completely and 1/3) to soak up water from the ground. Danger of animals digging the beds up.
  • 20-30 cm wide, depth of wood chips/sawdust 2 x 5-10cm
  • Inoculated logs completely buried in soil, horizontally
  • Inoculated logs upright, 1/3 flower pots indoor and in soil outside
  • Substrates
  • 5 mushroom types: Elm oyster, (King stropharia, Shaggy mane - next visit/garden), Nameko, Shiitake (slimy and delicious), Leion's mane, Changeable agric. Mixing mushroom types is not good.
  • Some logs partially buried (soil, pots, in/outdoor) first meeting
• Tomato beds: half-half wooden chips-sawdust, mycelium and soil (pizza-bed.) Layers for mycelium: soil, wood chips, inoculated grains, wood chips, paper/card with holes, soil with plants into the holes: tomatoes, basil,… extra foods, e.g. dog food/cat soup should be good for mushrooms
• Make connection with Mykologische Arbeitsgemeinschaft, Botanischer Garten in Linz and local fungi-addicted people

• 14-18.3
  • Inoculate (all) the logs we have. these logs should be stored where appropriate.
  • Some logs buried - need some sawdust.
  • Prepare the first log-beds out the back
  • Chainsaw to size
  • Woodchips with the electric plane and pasteurize them

• Mid April fresh sawdust and wood chips - 2 weeks beforehand is optimal. 3 weeks less so but okay.
• Also collect espresso grounds - helps balance the soil pH - get a few days before Natalia arrives.

• 1st week in May
  • 7-10 days
  • Setting up more or less everything!
  • Workshop on 5th May - 'Spawn-2-substrate techniques, low-tek propagation'
  • Materials all prepared: plugs, logs, beeswax, chips, sawdust, coffee grounds
  • Cap for spore printing or for more mycelium
  • Workshop for people to come and take home a next generation
  • Try making plugs and the inoculated grains - this might be too hard
  • Workshop people making the logs for us and maybe taking one with them - knowledge exchange
  • Indoor wood chips and grains - this is for the June clone party
  • Get in contact with Leos friend (mushroom expert) - get details off Leo / set a time for an informal meeting

• Third phase depends on when the mushrooms come. 6 weeks later for indoor. Outdoor will be even later - late August through October.
• Logs might take 1-2 years to start and be (fully) productive.
  • Cloning event in June - say around 18-27 June
  • We will see the mycelium 2 weeks beforehand. it looks like a cake. Then shock it (light, maybe cold), open it slightly (fresh air), wait a few days 3-4, then pinning. then 7 days to the mushroom. 4-5 days of mushrooms before they dry out.
  • Cloning from stems.
  • Main event mid/end September. Details to follow.

• Ongoing - every 2-3 years beds expending. Logs can produce 2-8 years depending on the type of mushroom, wood, size of the log and conditions.

• Outdoor:
  • Elm/2 x Beech/plugs (upright, 1/3 into the soil)
  • Changeable agaric/1 x Ash, 1 x Birch, 1 x Alder/plugs (upright, 1/3 into the soil)
  • Nomeko/2 x Beech/plugs, 1 x Birch (long configuration/soil)
  • Leon's mane/2 x Beech/old grains (upright, 1/3, soil)

• Indoor:
  • Oysters/sawdust + coffee/stem butts (flower pot)
  • Leon's mane/sawdust + coffee/(old)grains (log upright 1/3, flower pot)
  • Changeable agaric/plugs/1 x Birch, 1 x Alder (log upright 1/3, flower pot)
  • Oysters/sawdust + coffee/stem butts (flower pot)
  • Shiitake/sawdust + coffee/grains (flower pot)
  • Elm/sawdust/plugs (2 x toilet paper)

Pix:

http://aa-vv.org/node/147

http://www.flickr.com/photos/times_up/sets/72157629601830295/

• SHROM-SHROOM WORKSHOP: Some non-sterile methods and simple procedures, fast-to-grow mushroom-varieties, experimental substrates and growing mediums for starting up your potential non-green-garden at home, yard and any other in/outdoor habitat.
• n-g-g indoor
• n-g-g inter-planted with g-g. bed-culture outdoor. (Artificial beds in front - experimental 'hanging permaculture-bed with plants/kitchen garden and mushrooms interplanted)
• n-g-g bed-culture outdoor ('Stopharia path', Stopharia straw bed, 'Hugelkultur raised bed'=potato interplanted with mushrooms oysters)

• mushrooms spawn
• fresh (Wheat) straw
• hardwood-chips
• hardwood-sawdust=Hartholz-Pellets
• logs, 20-30 cm diameter x 50-60 cm
• coconut coir/kokosfaser
• lime (limestone)/calcium carbonate (CaCO3)/garten kalk/kalkhydrat (mineral used to improve an acid soil)
• garden gypsum aka calcium sulfate (CaSO4) (It provides calcium & sulfur, both essential nutrients, but does not affect soil pH. This can be very helpful in improving soil tilth, reducing soil compaction, & improving aeration.)
• recycled pelleted paper fiber (optional)
• used coffee grains
• vermiculite
• paper/nursery pots
• paper plates
• plastic plates
• ordinary trash bags
• 3% peroxide solution
• old cotton pillow (to soak straw)
• paper grocery or paper lawn sized bags (to cover totem-logs)
• plastic bags, black or white, sized (to completely enclose totem-logs and

close over the top)

• bran(Kleie)/rice bran
• hay mini-bales
• color pHast strips with a pH 4 to 10 range to measure the soil pH
• horse poo
• cow poo
• chicken manure
• wild bird seed
• vegetable oil
• kelp meal

to collect:

• cardboard boxes
• egg-boxes
• egg shells
• coffee (clean pot/bag. do not mix it with anything else. keep it covered)
• rain water
• newspapers
• cotton waste (cloth etc)
• old garbage/laundry baskets with holes
• human/animal urine (the fresh one;)
• dry oak leaves (parks, forest)

• spawn (Stropharia)
• fresh (Wheat) straw
• fresh hardwood chips (up to 6 months’ old Alder, Maple, Birch, Cottonwood, Ash no more than 20% of pile)
• cardboard
• plants can be used:
• 3 x tomatoes
• 3 x basil
• 1 x oregano
• 1 x thyme
• 1 x garlic/onion
• 1 x eggplant (try to find a substitute if you do not like it)
• 1 x zucchini (try to find a substitute if you do not like it)
• 1 x marjoram
• compost (later on)

'Stopharia path'

• spawn (Stropharia rugusoannulata)
• mixed hardwood (work best)
• dog food soup (freely available from transfer and recycling centers)
• or/and cat food soup
• weeds/cardboard

'Stopharia straw bed'

• spawn (Stropharia rugusoannulata)
• fresh wheat straw
• cover (old sesame bags, cloth, cardboards, grass shade)

'Hugelkultur raised bed' - potato interplanted with mushrooms (oysters)

we can try to experiment with hugelkultur raised (up to 2m high) bed potato interplanted with mushrooms (for urban conditions = it can be built on top of bare ground, concrete, gravel or hanging..)-perfect for potato as well as cucumbers and legumes

• rotting wood/branches/woody debris
• leaves, straw, woodchips, manure, and or compost and soil
• wood ash
• weeds
• hedge clippings
• garden soil
• coffee grounds
• topsoil
• compost and or manure
• diluted pee
• crushed egg shells
• some logs for the edges (can be mushrooms inoculated)
• mulch inoculated with gourmet mushrooms
• potato

• 3 x Brown stew fungus, straw spawn 1 litre
• 1 x Oyster mushroom “Florida” 1 litre
• 1 x Pleurotus pulmonarius 1 litre
• 2 x Pink oyster mushroom, grain spawn 1 litre
• 1 x Elm oyster mushroom, grain spawn 1 litre
• 1 x Oyster mushroom, grain spawn 1 litre

• 1-2 pm - short intro to mushrooms and 'home-cultivation TEK' with in/based on my non-green-gardening research-project experience so far…
• 2-3.30 pm - hand's on participative demonstrations of log-inoculation methods (bolt, totems and wedge)
• 30 min - coffee break (to 'produce' coffee grains for the 2d part of the workshop)
• 4 – 4.30 pm hands-on demonstrations of inoculation
• 4.30 – 6/7 pm - inoculation party = 'make your hands clean' experimenting with several recipes of the bulk substrates and mushroom species for the indoor and outdoor growing.

More details and images at:

http://aa-vv.org/node/153 http://aa-vv.org/node/38 http://aa-vv.org/node/151

• Maintenance of the fungal colonies indoor: transferring inoculated mediums from the incubation room/period to the growing-room/period and birthing the fungal mycelium.
• Maintenance of the fungal colonies outdoor (logs and mushroom beds at the backside of the building).
• Finishing the experimental design of the mushroom-hugelkulture bed.
• The interplanting of mushrooms with plants at the suspended and hugel-bed/s.
• Theoretical research and process documentation along the way.
• Writing a set of instructions on 'how to maintain in/outdoor mushrooms in order to support the few more indoor-flushes and prepare for the outdoor-fruiting in late summer. (I'll be away till the middle of August).

• Over viewing and organizing of all the 'myco-experience' @ TU-and-Home's NGG into on-/off line smth.
• 'Lets have a nice “fest” = (un-)presentation while harvesting, cooking and consuming fruits of all over summer labor of NGG and GG.
• Preparing beds and logs for winter.
• What's 'next'?

I've been contemplating mushroom cultivation as a source of ongoing surprises and unmatched nutritional supremacy since almost a year now. Most of edible mushrooms I've grown so far were wood-decomposes (Lentinus edodes, Pholiota nameko, Hypsizygus Ulmarius, Stropharia rugosoannulata and 5 different types of P. Ostreatus). During the winter time I kept them indoor and fed with all kind of cellulose-based household waste and when the spring came i let them out to thrive on something tastier - logs, straw, wood-chips and garden scraps at my Berlin-terrace.

The next step/stop was the urban garden at Times'up (TU)= few vertical beds and containers around the harbor building (much more urban than i could couple with the 'garden'), but i took it as an intriguing/challenging playground for the cross-testing and inter-planting of citified locations at TU with mushroom-varieties, substrate-compositions, types of kitchen veggies and always busy time uppers in order to see what would be the best combinations for the given environment..:

* INDOOR NGG: In connection with the inocultion workshop there were 24 mushroom-objects created by participants and myself for the INDOOR grow- test. The fruiting variables were already expected in 10 days upon inoculation, with the cropping-circle of 3-4 flushes, every 2 weeks through the summer (from May til the end of August)

* OUTDOOR NGG: Front-side of the TU builting (direct sun): mushrooms were inter-planted with veggies at 2 suspended beds.

* Backside (semi-shadow): 2 'grounded' mushroom-beds and inoculated logs.

* Myco-hugel/raised bed at the right side of the building. From the beginning of May til the end of October there were continuously growing mushrooms:

* Almost all indoor object did well and fruit massively 3,4 times each, from May til the end of August (spread sheet)

* The back side was perfect for Stropharia (if not to consider slugs) - 3,4 crops over July→August.

* The logs at the back side started fruiting in September and will do so few times per year over 3-4 years long (i hope). In winter they will go dormant and have to be protected from freezing with straw or dry leaves.

* The suspended bed at the front side of the building was critical for Stropharia because of the direct sun hit and a lack of watering. V. P. djamor (The pink oyster mushroom) at the same bed enjoyed this conditions and gave a few crops over summer. The same goes for White Elm Mushroom (Hypsizygus Ulmarius) which was inter-planted with strawberry and did very well.

* Most of the overloaded TU members did not really catch up what was this mushroom extraterrestriality about. Some one rejected the connection, some one had to take over most of duties of caring about (too many) adopted strangers they liked to use for the 'omelette', hi-hi..

More about Stropharia rugosoannulata (King stropharia, Garden giants): There are 3 Stropharia-beds were planted in spring: * 1 x suspended bed in-front of the building (direct sun) - Stropharia (wooden chips) inter-planted with Tomatoes, Basil and Sweet Pepper. * 2 x 'grounded' beds with just Stropharia/backside (semi-shady). One bed were straw based, another - wooden chips. Stropharia did not fruit at the suspended bed, not at all. (Vegetables and Pink Oyster at the same bed did very well though). I found the wooden chips with Stropharia's mycelium being almost dried out and overheated already on my return in May. I tried to recover it with extensive watering and cooling down, but it did not work out in the end of the day. Reasons: The bed is constructed the way that it looses water very fast and fully depend on someone's continues watering as it's located under the direct sun and protected from the rain. I suspect that this bed was close to very warm and dry conditions most of the time over summer. Stropharia likes sun, but not over + 30C and not all day long. In this kind of fast water loosing conditions Stropharia could not compete for water with water-loving Tomatoes and Basil. Moisture loss from the Tomatoes and Basil were more a problem than help. The other 2 beds at semi-shade/backside have been very fruitful during July and August= 3-4 Stropharia crops (although i was a little 'surprised' to find out that all harvests have bin either missed nor discarded… grr, not too rewarding). The same kind of inter-planting I did try in Berlin, but at the 'grounded' bed and in a partial sunlight and it has resulted in 4 mushroom-crops over summer to enjoy. One more parallel trial at the terrace in Berlin over this summer.

Conclusion: Moist, semi-sunny location is very important for outdoor Stropharia's growing. Temperature closely, above 32/35C degrees inside the bed will most likely kill the mycelium. Stropharia will fruit repeatedly throughout the season following rain. Misting of the bed in the evening desirable if there is no rain for a long time. Once having a mother Stroph colony, there is no need any more to buy spawn again. To start a new bed, the colonized wood-chips can be used as a spawn for fresh chips. The stem butts of harvested mushrooms can be used as well. Another layer of straw in the fall and another layer of straw/wood chips in the spring will keep the spawn moisture and repeat the cycle year after year. Super low TEK, very satisfying mushroom to grow, very yummy and excellent for the garden. It teems up with (especially) aromatic bushy plants, corn, beans, bees, worms and seem to enrich soils, helps out the size, health of the veggies and might double the crop. Stropharia_rugosoannulata: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/stropharia_rugosoannulata.html http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/King_Stropharia_mushrooms_in_permaculture/ http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/Mushrooms.Folder/Wine%20Cap.html

In case of next year planting @ TU - the front side can be used for: Elm and Pink Oyster; the back side for Stropharia and other semi-shadow loving mushrooms like Oysters, Shiitake (logs and beds, etc). Stropharia can be also tried out at the suspended bed (rain-unprotected) in combination with bushy aromatic herbs (Basil, Mints, Sage, Lemon Balm etc) or pole beans. The bed should be kept moist!

In parallel with TU NGG i kept maintaining my NGG at home (mushroom-objects, beds and logs) to experience the crops close hand, since the TU NGG was unavailable during the summer.

If i could get my hands on the Paul Stamet's books, theoretically i would know much more about mushroom's potentials, teks and methods. I keep the way of learning from my own trials instead. Mushrooms are infinite and i enjoy to be lost and found in cultivation of practical knowledge about fungi and beyond..

More details and images at: http://aa-vv.org/node/154