Golden Enoki Mushroom Harvest
And today I'm kind of just checking out these mushrooms that I have going on in the grow rooms. And this is a a newer mushroom for me for Southwest Mushrooms actually. This is a golden enoki mushroom. Really really cool mushroom. Also known as a Flammulina.
Velutipes. So really popular mushroom grown widely throughout Asia and popularized popularized in Japan. Um mushrooms known for growing out in these really dense tight bouquets of of many mushrooms, hundreds of mushrooms that you'll see growing out and it's super cool because you can kind of uh mimic the characteristics of the mushroom by either maintaining a high CO2 and low light environment and that promotes the mushroom to grow out a very long stem with a really small cap and the mushroom really lends well to like soups and and all kinds of dishes. The the really small stem is edible. So it also lends like uh a nice I would say like a nice somewhat fruity peppery really tender flavor.
So And we have a another blue oyster mushroom that we're growing here. This is a Nevada oyster mushroom from Nevada. So it's another blue oyster mushroom that I've been experimenting with. This one uh is tolerant to higher CO2 levels. So that's really good for I guess just a good mushroom honestly to grow for anybody but yeah.
Put that out here. Here's an example of the enoki. Um trying to promote like a higher CO2 environment with the mushroom. So basically when putting it into fruiting just a couple slits are made across the top of the bag. So that basically maintains a higher CO2 environment.
You get kind of these longer stems and smaller caps. As opposed to the bigger caps that we get here. So Also we have some nameko mushrooms. This is a second flush. So this is a mushroom that likes to be top fruited and it also is a cousin to the chestnut mushroom.
So it's another Pholiota. Uh this mushroom produces a gelatinous uh type substance on top of the cap. So really makes it a unique mushroom to add into like soups, stuff like that. Um really popular in Asian style uh cuisine. So really really cool stuff.
We have some black pearl king oyster mushrooms. So it's really cool oyster mushroom that I like to grow. And here we see it see it side fruiting. So I'll just load the bags on the shelf and and make incisions right off the side. So we get these really nice nice clusters of uh mushrooms.
Kind of harvest one. And it just pop right off and just really beautiful. Mushroom has a nice marbling on the cap. And really really nice tight clusters that you get these shelf like formations of uh beautiful mushrooms. And we also have some of the pink oyster And now that it's kind of getting a little bit warmer outside uh we're starting to grow some pink oyster mushrooms.
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This mushroom is great for the summertime. It likes temperatures between 65 all the way up into like 90°. So it's great for a tropical climates or just warm desert climates. Uh the only thing about it is it has a short shelf life. Usually only lasting about like 3 to 5 days before uh it basically it's not usable.
So it's one that definitely needs to be either sold quickly or dried upon harvesting. Another thing about the enoki that's interesting is it's a cold weather loving mushroom. It does well between 40 to 50°. So it's also a mushroom that's known to survive like freezing temperatures. It's known to freeze and and continue growing after thawing out.
I've actually put spawn of this mushroom in the fridge and and have had the mushroom fruit in the fridge. So it'll grow in really cold temperatures. It's very finicky. And if it's too warm the mushroom will not develop properly. So it's going to it's kind of seasonal here.
As we progress into the warmer months into springtime we won't be able to grow this mushroom optimally. So I mean it might might fruit but you'll get poorer results and I found that the temperatures need to be pretty pretty cool for this mushroom. I mean bigger farms will actually grow this mushroom in two in chilled growing rooms that are basically refrigerated. But this is more of just like an experiment. Kind of just grew grew this mushroom out just for funs and just to experiment with it but I would say that's really interesting.
It also uh develops furry feet at the base of the mushroom. And as for harvesting the mushroom it can be a tedious effort. Just grab these mushrooms at the base. Kind of just peel them right down. You can harvest these mushrooms in just these tight clusters.
And usually you'll find find these mushrooms grown in like a bottle style culture in in Asia. So they grow these mushrooms right off the top of of a jar or a bottle. And you get these perfect little formations that are really easily harvested. Um growing them in bag culture like this definitely uh makes it more of a labor intensive harvest but you can still get really nice clusters and then with scissors just trim off any of remaining sawdust from the mushroom. But for the most part super simple harvest just a super beautiful mushroom.
All these nice little convex caps and just that nice coloration. Um really lends well to like soups. Especially when you can get the really small caps and the super long stems. You can kind of get like almost like a noodle like texture out of this mushroom. So I think it's super super cool.
Really excited to be growing this mushroom for the time that I have to grow it. So definitely want to get in as much growing of it as I can before the before the season's gone. Another thing is the mushroom also does produce lots of fruit bodies inside of the bag. So you this this is probably one of the only I guess parts that you're going to have to really really clean up. So I'd recommend peeling the whole bag down.
Kind of just I would say this would be just waste product. And honestly you don't really just get it the best you can. Um cuz it's known to produce their second flush. And if any remaining mushrooms on I've even read that the new new mushrooms will even form atop the old ones. So I'll just harvest this block as well.
All right. And there we go. And then yeah we'll just have some extra growth along the side of the bag and these little mushrooms can just be used for like personal. You can take them home and just eat them yourself. But as far as like including them for for some of the boxes I'd rather just use the prettier more fuller looking And then kind of like what with the nameko we'll just like kind of fold the plastic right back over itself until I see the mushrooms begin forming.
And then at that point we kind of just lift the plastic up and kind of roll it up like we did with these bags. And here we have some chestnut mushrooms, Pholiota adiposa. And um I'm a little bummed out about these because they were left to overgrow a little bit. So we noticed that they have started to sporulate on themselves and they produce this brown colored spore. Maybe it's a chestnut colored spore but also I noticed too that the caps begin to present a lot more moisture as they age.
I like to catch these mushrooms when they're still in their prime when the caps are still kind of curled in and the veil's still attached. And also you can see nice tufts of white flaky mycelium across the caps. So um when it's like this we'll just kind of and they don't last as long in the fridge. And also they will produce a bunch of these spores while in storage. So, you'll find that if you store these with other mushrooms, they will also get covered in it and covered in a nice blanket of these brown spores.
So, for mushrooms like lion's mane or your white mushrooms, uh you'll find that they can, you know, it kind of ruin the look of the mushroom. So, um when when like this, we'll store them separately and honestly, mhm really use it for a dried mushroom um because we want to get the most out of the shelf life and the most out of the quality. So, yeah. Actually harvest this now. This is actually a second flush as well.
Uh the first flush was top fruited just on the rack like this. Then we harvest the mushrooms and then we stack them, kind of build a wall out of them and get a second flush just like that. So, then I'll just kind of harvest this cluster at once. A lot of the times I do get asked questions with all the different types of mushrooms that are cultivated here is if we grow strains like chicken of the woods or morels or chanterelles, um all kinds of mushrooms. Uh but for the most part, we actually we only cultivate um mushrooms that are basically primary decomposers and stuff like that.
These are saprophytic mushrooms that you'd find growing directly off of like hardwoods in nature. Um they're not mycorrhizal mushrooms. Um some of the mushrooms that can't be cultivated uh in an indoor facility such as like the morels and chanterelles, truffles. Chicken of the woods is one that I get asked about frequently. Even though that there has been um I've seen people cultivate chicken of the wood woods in uh spawn format or in like a sawdust filter patch bag.
And I have seen fruitings form at the filter patch and and like a small chicken of the woods um mushroom will come out, but it's nothing nothing really crazy, nothing like what you'd find in nature. Um so, I don't grow chicken of the woods currently um or really any other mycorrhizal mushrooms, but we do grow a wider a wide array of some cool exotic and medicinal mushrooms. So,