It was my intentention to write about my progress with my experimental polyculture, having planted out the rye, and spelt. Sadly, we have a rabbit/rabbits in the vegetable growing space, and they seem happiest eating the clover groundcover. So I’m having to wait until I can get them out.
The seedlings are now more than a foot tall, and strong enough to go out, but are at the ideal height for rabbit browsing.
I have created the two Stropharia beds though, and have posted the pictures.
Stropharia Beds
The Stropharia came as wooden pegs, 16 to a bag, each bag enough for two square meters.
The beds were made by digging into a raised bed, edging it with timber(Ply), and lining it with cardboard and paper. The lining is to slow the ingress of competing fungi, until the stropharia is established.
I then filled the bed with freshly shredded wood prunings, principally sycamore, but with some willow, an elder. By using fresh wood, the moisture content is about right for colonisation by the mycelium.
HavingĀ put the shreddings into the bed, I pushed the pegs through the bed, through the cardboard, and into the soil.
Finally, I covered the bed with damp cardboard, to keep the humidity up.
It will take a couple of months for the stropharia mycelium to colonise the shreddings, and may not fruit this year, but I hope to use the colonised substrate to create new beds,
I think that in future, I’llĀ put a thin bed of Stropharia along the centre of each of the vegetable beds, and top it up with chippings.
All of the best
Deano
I have come to consider rabbits as one of my crops, and deer likewise. The delicious nutritiousness of the meat certainly sweetens any upset from the damage they cause.
Hi Miles
Sadly I’m vegetarian, and don’t eat them. My wife is a meat eater, but wouldn’t kill them for herself. It is certainly less work to harvest a natural surplus, than to rear your own meat.
All of the best
Deano