Companion planting with mushrooms

General Discussions
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Hi, guys! I’ve been trying to figure out if there’s a way to integrate mushrooms into my garden. I see wild ones (which I’m 99% sure are inedible, so I’m not going to try them) after any of the rare rainstorms we have in summer and fall, so clearly mushrooms can grow here.

I found this video, which is helpful for getting started thinking about it.

I’m pondering the possibilities of planting them on the north side of my house. The soil there is always shaded, and it’s often more moist than most places, even in summer, because there’s a window air conditioner there that drips steadily into a specific spot. That seems like an ideal place to grow something shade-loving that would otherwise not like my hot dry summers.

I’m pondering putting sea kale there, for the same reason. So I wondered if mushrooms are good for companion planting, and found this video.

Looks like . . . they’re great! From what she was saying, wine cap mushrooms are good for everything, and elm oyster mushrooms are particularly good for brassicas. Both are edible and tasty.

Hmmmmm.

I looked up more about elm oyster mushrooms, and what I’ve learned sounds particularly interesting for another reason.

You see, we have really tall Chinese elms (sob) right next to the north side of our house (sob), which the previous homeowners didn’t do anything about, so now they’re too tall to cut down, and those really invasive roots are bad news for our house’s foundations. We can’t cut them down ourselves because they’re too tall to cut down safely, and a tree company wants $5,000 to get rid of them, which is about $4,900 more than we could afford to spend. (Sob sob.)

From what I’m reading online, it looks like elm oysters like to feed as parasites on living elm trees, and they like to grow out of wounds in the tree. I cut the branches off those things whenever I can reach them, so there are often wounds. I wonder if introducing elm oyster mushrooms into my ecosystem would help keep those very invasive weed trees in check?

There’s also a stump of a shorter tree we did manage to cut down that we don’t want to grow back. Would putting elm oyster mushrooms on that stump help that tree die? While also introducing mycelium that would do great things for my perennial brassicas?

There are very interesting possibilities here.

Have any of you used companion planting with mushrooms?

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I have fungi in my garden for the first time this year. I used poplar trunks for this. I put these vertically in the ground and then drilled holes in them and put dowels with traces of fungi in them. I don’t have these fungi to eat, but to improve the soil. They are doing extremely well

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Nice! Are they on a living tree trunk or a dead one?

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a dead one

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Emily, are those Elm trees close to the house? I believe killing thèm by wounding them might make matters worse. Alive trees don’t fall over that quickly.
Although true that trees break foundations at times, some are not too bad. Runners can just be mowed…And if they function as a wind break, they are valuable in that perspective. I hate this dry summer wind scorching my garden. And any shade is welcome too at times.

Anyway, i have red winecap mushrooms in the garden. It loves to eat straw and hay i add to the pathways. I’ve started it in spring and dug some deep holes to keep it safe in once it colonized a starters bed. From those it colonized my pathways. It’s one of the few edible mushrooms which are able to out compete super locally adapted wild mycelia and it’s said to be able to cooperate with quite some plants roots as well.
Quite some info on Permies about it.

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Ouch, good point. Yes, they’re VERY close to the house, about ten feet away, which is why we’re so concerned about them. We don’t want them to fall on our roof, and they have soft wood that is known for breaking in heavy storms, and strong wind does happen in our valley. It’s been a huge concern ever since we moved in.

Ooh, it sounds like winecap mushrooms are a great fit, then! Yay!

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Is it Texan Elm? There are some varieties which are very drought tolerant. Could be a great companion if they wouldn’t be so close to the house. They’re easy to clone from root suckers apparently.
If i were afraid of them breaking the foundation i’d dig a trench, say a feet from the house, cut all the roots there with my battery powered recipocrating saw, fill it up with gravel and dig up root matter for propagation yearly. Until there’s lots of it everywhere and established. I’d then cut down the row of trees at gutter level and keep it like that. May they grow a thick hedge, all the better the wind break and shade. May they die, so they be mulched.
But you is not i, i assume.
No handy permaculturesque folk around ready to lend a hand? I thought USA was do-it-yourself land?

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Oyster mushrooms work well in the garden in my experience. Winecaps, elm oysters and lions mane are all supposed to be good as well (I haven’t tried those alongside vegetables). I’d be worried about using elm oysters to kill the elms, because it might make them more likely to fall on the house.

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Yeah, you’re right, killing the trees by any other means than cutting them down would probably just make them more dangerous to us. (Sigh.) It’s just so frustrating that they keep getting taller and more dangerous and harder to remove every year.

They’re Chinese elms. They are super, super, super, super invasive weeds here. They must be drought tolerant, because they grow everywhere. They also spread by suckers everywhere. Their roots are known for invading house foundations. And they attract vast quantities of elm seed bugs, which get into our house and smell when we squash them. We really don’t like them.

Besides, I want to plant a hedge of apple trees in their place. :wink:

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I would suggest having them professionally removed if you/neighbors aren’t confident in the safety of a diy removal. I’ve helped before when they were too far to fall on the house. Risk is just too great when they are close as the You tube fails make clear.
If you have them cut down, late winter is the best time to maximize the nutrition available to mushrooms. You can do Oysters, Shiitake, or others in the logs. Oysters and Wine caps will do good in wood chips. Wood chips are simpler as no tools are required if the company will chip the trees for you.

And

Both have good info and I have done good with their Oyster and Wine cap spawn.

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Yeah, the Chinese elms almost certainly need to be professionally removed. But neither I nor my neighbor can afford even a tenth of the $5,000 cost to have that done. That’s the problem.

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Darn, I wonder if there is some kind of invasive species removal grant that could help with the cost.
The logs would have some value as firewood, but then you couldn’t grow mushrooms on them.

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I would definitely eat those beautiful oyster mushrooms. You don’t hurt anything by eating them as the few you miss will still make millions of spores.

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Perennial potato/mushroom beds.

Will work anywhere where you use appropriate mulch/substrate; straw or wood chip + plants create enough shade for a conducive environment for mushroom growing.

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Beautiful plants and Stropharia Wine Caps! Makes me miss my old garden in Oregon this time of year (until I think about all the clay sticking to everything). If I had stayed at that garden, I would have made the rest of the walkways wood chips spawned with edible fungi. I was worried that I would be stepping on them, but when they popped, they came out of the dirt next to the path.

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I’m working on incorporating them into guilds of perennial veggies underneath fruit & nut trees & shrubs. Working very well atm. Yes, the King Stropharia in particular likes contact with soil & wanders quite a bit to find its own food. There is an interesting section in Paul Stamets book, “Mycelium Running” on experiments of growing veg with mycelium that showed quite interesting results with different types of veg & mycelium.

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Mother of Gley. What is that gorgeous looking plant in thé first pic? Red stemmed Angelica maybe?
Love the woodchips!

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I’m just reading a thread on permies where a guy is basically making his garden beds from woodchips composed in situ by mushrooms/fungi. There’s vegetables and mushrooms in those beds at the same time at various point in time.
I’m enjoying following his journey and find it really usefull. It started 4 years ago and the thread is still going - he is making regular updates on what was done and what were the results, what worked and what didn’t.
It got me thinking what’s possible and how can I apply a variation of it in my place.

Here’s the link:
https://permies.com/t/82798/composting/composting-wood-chips-chicken-litter

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Sarpo Blue Danube potato plant. There is some lady’s mantle in that bed as well & some other wildflowers.

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It’s a striking beauty! I haven’t heard of that potato variety.
I will be starting to grow potato from seed this year. I’ve ordered a couple of mixes. Are you saving seeds?