Mushroom Cultivation

Wonderfully laid out and informative book for anyone looking to expand their gardening to include mushrooms. Clear and concise directions with plenty of photographs of the instructed processes. Would highly recommend for a someone looking to diversify their food garden. The author gives detailed information on types of mushrooms, growing methods and safe consumption.

Beautifully illustrated how-to for the beginner as well as more advanced mushroom enthusiasts. I would love to see this in Kindle format, as well as hard copy for my reference library! Lots of great tips and basic information on all aspects of mushroom cultivation. . Thank you!

For beginners or for advanced gardeners, this book will not disappoint. An excellent reference book about mushroom cultivation. Tutorial well explained and well illustrated.

Mushroom Cultivation is an interesting book for those wanting to grow their own mushrooms at home. It covers many different methods for doing this with accompanying colour photography to show the steps needed and provides recipes for your crop.

The book is split into 8 chapters, with the first chapter explaining the basics of what a mushroom is and choosing the best material to grow with.

It provides details in the next 4 chapters on the different methods:

Logs
Straw
Saw dust & wood chips
Compost
Each comes with excellent photographic and written instructions plus how to prepare the straw or identify the right sort of trees to use as logs.  It also recommends which is the best mushroom to grow in each method.  These methods do seem to require quite a bit of space (or a forest!)

In the Problems and Solutions chapter details are provided on how to start smaller with a kit, how to identify your mushrooms with a spore print (though a separate mushroom guide is recommended for this) and if things go wrong how to remedy them.  I did wonder if there would be a section on kits, however I did expect this to be earlier on in the book before moving onto bigger sized projects.

The final two chapters provide information on what to do with your crop, how to store and how to dry or freeze your mushrooms, and 8 recipes, with soups, pickles and tarts to name a few.  Recipes have both metric and imperial measurements but no photographs to show the finished dish.

Throughout the rest of the book there is wonderful colour photography showing either the steps or the mushrooms growing.  Included are tip boxes with in the chapters with a warning on checking what you have, art with the spores and how to tell one type of specific mushroom from another.

I received this book from netgalley in return for a honest review.

I am interested in home mushroom cultivation, but was leery of it. I didn't know enough to dare to try it, but after reading this book, I am definitely going to give it a try.
The clear instructions and beautiful pictures make me believe that I can succeed. It answered questions that I didn't even realize I had.
I was given the opportunity to read this book from Netgalley and am very grateful for chance.

I love mushrooms. I cook with them a lot, I can even eat them straight out of the can or fresh. I have always wanted to learn how to grow mushrooms so I can have them anytime I want. I also know there are so many types of mushrooms. I also know that some of the mushrooms you see while just walking through the woods are eatable, just never been sure which ones.

This book has tons of pictures, and a lot of information showing how to grow eatable mushrooms. The book is very informative and very helpful. It offers chapters on how and where to grow them like on logs, hay, compost and more. It even gives you recipes to use the mushrooms you have grown.

I received this book from the Author or Publisher via Netgalley.com to read and review.

Wonderfully laid out and informative book for anyone looking to expand their gardening to include mushrooms. The directions are clear with plenty of photographs of the instructed processes.

This is a very comprehensive book about successfully cultivating mushrooms, no matter at what scale. Tavis Lynch is a real expert who gives a lot of tips that are hard to find elsewhere. There are instructions on growing mushrooms on different mediums, even on compost. As an absolute beginner I can see myself delving into cultivating my own mushrooms on straw or on sawdust and wood chips. The mushroom photographs are magnificent and there are may helpful step-by-step photograph illustrations in this book which leave no questions, for example on how to innoculate logs. By reading the expert instructions and looking at the illustrations I found the confidence to try growing mushrooms myself. Thank you, Tavis, for sharing your knowledge with the readers of this book.

Tavis Lynch's "Mushroom Cultivation" is an expertly written step by step guide to growing your own mushrooms. If you have a love of mushrooms this book will give you all the info you need to feel confident in identifying and cultivating your very own mushrooms. A variety of different methods are explored depending on that materials are available to you, your climate, and how much or how little space you have. Illustrated with stunning photography of each step throughout the process makes it incredibly easy to understand and follow along. Highly recommended for anyone curious about mushrooms!

I have received an e-copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


In the introduction to this book, Britt A. Bunyard says "[we went from] mycophobia to commercialized mycophilia. All in the span of about three decades." I think it's slightly different in Poland, where mushrooms are a time- and tradition-honoured ingredient, collected in the autumn, dried and used up for flavour and protein in winter months. Unlike in the Anglophone world, mushrooms are a vital part of dishes during our Christmas celebrations here.

Still, the sentiment is true: mushrooms (and mushroom lovers) are on the rise. And while hereabouts you can easily buy freshly collected forest mushrooms from about July to late October (or collect them yourself, if you know where they grow), and champignons / button mushrooms are available all year round, there may come a time when you think "I enjoy eating those oyster mushrooms but they can be kinda pricey. Maybe I should consider growing them?"

Or maybe it's just me, your resident urban gardener. Anyway. If you want to try your hand at growing mushrooms, you may want to check out Mushroom Cultivation. In his book, Tavis Lynch provides information on various ways of cultivating mushrooms, from super-large scale ones ("cut down some trees and drill holes in them and then store them in your garden" -- yeah, not gonna happen to most of us) to ideas more manageable in your cellar (think containers with sawdust or straw). Lynch also gives tips on how to deal with certain most common problems concerning mushroom growing. Additionally, there is a chapter containing some simple recipes for the mushrooms you have grown.

Overall, while many pieces of information contained in this book will not be very useful to an average city-dweller, Mushroom Cultivation can also be a source of inspiration. It definitely makes you consider container-growing. And guess what? This is the perfect method for oyster mushrooms!

This is a very informative book on how to cultivate mushrooms for your own use - I have often gone foraging for wild mushrooms, but never really thought about their growing habits.
This book cover all aspect of growing mushrooms, how to replicate growing conditions and how to look after them. There is even a section on drying and cooking. The information is detailed and very professional and makes very interesting reading.
The process does not look a very quick and simple, but for the very beginner there are the mushroom kit boxes to be brought to start with - just add water. I bought one today and hopefully in a few weeks I can eat some home raised mushrooms.
Really love this book and would be very useful to someone who is serious in growing mushrooms.

This book will be very popular at our library, where mushroom hunting and cultivation is a way of life. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it is stolen quickly, which is actually kind of a compliment.

Great book, very educational and helpful! I learned new information about mushrooms that I did not know before reading this. The photography in this book is also very visually appealing and makes the pages pop.

I've been wanting to try my hand at growing mushrooms for quite awhile. Tavis Lynch's book "Mushroom Cultivation" gives me all the tools I'll need to do just that. Whether one wants to just try a simple cultivation method or have a large scale operation, this book gives you a wealth of information. Several different methods of cultivation are described in detail, with lots of illustrations. The author is clearly an expert on all sorts of mushrooms and recommends ways to avoid failure for each method. In addition to the growing methods, there are also instructions for drying and storing mushrooms and even several recipes! I also valued the chapter called "Problems and Solutions." It provides good advice for identifying and solving problems. A resource like this book gives me the confidence to try growing mushrooms. I will definitely buy it!

Interesting information is found in this book with fantastic photos. The photos added go perfectly with this book and really add to everything making it even more wonderful -- without the photos it just wouldn't be the same. Beautiful photos!

If you're into mushrooms then you'll find this book really interesting but it's not for the casual interest and probably wouldn't sell in the average store. A speciality read albeit a really good one with clear pictures and technique if you fancy giving it a go.

There has been a renaissance the last few year in niche/specialty gardening books. Mushroom Cultivation: An Illustrated Guide to Growing Your Own Mushrooms at Home is a very well written, scientifically sound, lavishly illustrated specialty guide to growing/processing/cooking many types of mushrooms aimed at the home gardener.

Released 8th May, 2018 from Quarto Publishing group's Quarry imprint, it's 144 pages and available in ebook and softbound formats.

Author Tavis Lynch has arranged the book logically and writes in a clear, easy to follow manner. After a short forward (by the editor in chief of FUNGI magazine) and introduction, the book defines and describes what fungi are (and aren't), illustrates the typical life cycle of a fungus, and gives a short intro on the tools and materials necessary for successful mushroom culture.

There are four main culture methods introduced in the first chapter (growing on logs, straw, sawdust/wood chips, and compost). Each of the four is expanded thoroughly in its own chapter following the introduction. There are specific recommendations for every culture method including which type of mushrooms suit each method, which woods and which climates are appropriate for each type of mushroom as well as tips and tricks and suggestions garnered over 30 years of foraging and growing experience.

The culture chapters are followed by a solid troubleshooting guide, processing guide and really useful recipes. I haven't tested out the culture info one-on-one on my own property yet (my logs are resting and I am sourcing spawn at the moment), but the recipes have been tried here in my kitchen and pronounced a roaring success (from purchased 'shrooms) by my fungus eating family. The pickled winecap recipe (p. 126) is simple and yields a sublime product. Who knew mushrooms could be pickled?!

The book also includes a decent suppliers list (mostly but not totally) slanted toward North American growers, along with a good cross referenced index.

The full color photography is clear and supports and illustrates the text very well. Every single page of the entire book contains photographs. Definitely a useful book for the would-be mushroom farmer or keen gardener looking to expand their horizons.

Five stars.