KTHDSN

Oyster mushrooms

For my birthday back in February I received a grow your own mushrooms kit. It’s taken a bit of time to get it started, we had some mushrooms start growing then dry out, and we had trouble with water pooling and going a funny colour.

The instructions said to leave the plastic bag around the growing medium and cut slits for the mushrooms to grow through. This seemed to be the cause of the problems we were having. A large clump of mushrooms managed to grow through a hole in the corner of the plastic bag, which left a big hole when I picked them. I noticed that the next lot of mushrooms was growing well near the hole, but another clump growing under the plastic started out and then died off. I decide to remove the plastic and see if that helped.

Since I took the plastic off, the mushrooms in the picture have grown in that corner, and another clump has started to grow at the other end of the box. I think we’ve managed to make them happy.

Mushrooms are the most fun thing I’ve grown so far, they shoot up so quickly after they have appeared. These ones only started growing a few days ago and they’re already so big that they have knocked the lid off the box they’re growing in. I will pick them today to make room for more to grow.

I also have a box of white mushrooms which I have recently started. Nothing exciting has happened to those ones yet, but as soon as we get some mushrooms I will post a picture. I wonder what other kinds of mushroom I could grow?

I have planted fruit trees and bushes in my garden, and watching them turn green and grow is interesting but slow. Far more exciting are the seeds I have sown on my window ledge.

So far, I have coriander and cumin herbs in my kitchen, and various hot and sweet peppers, tomatoes and aubergines sprouting. Now that the seedlings have come through and I have uncovered them, I have room to start another batch of seeds.

Hopefully this year my seedlings will be safe from the snails that munched them all last year. I hope that starting them inside and moving them out when they’re a bit bigger will give them a better chance of surviving.

I love watching the little green bits start to appear in the compost. It amazes me how an entire plant fits into such a tiny seed.

Last year was my first garden, and as is to be expected of first attempts at something, it didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped. I started planting quite late in the season, my seedlings were attacked by slugs, I didn’t water anything enough and it was all quite disheartening. I gave up trying to rescue plants, enjoyed what did survive and left the garden alone completely once the last plants had given up on me.

This year, I’m excited to try again. Armed with experience of what not to do, a little more knowledge than last year, and a lot more enthusiasm, I’m hoping to get much better results this year. We took advantage of a rare sunny day last week to get started, took out weeds and old plants, dug the ground over a bit and planted some fruit trees and bushes that I got for my birthday.

I have a very ambitious stack of seeds waiting to be sown, as well as potatoes, onions and shallots to be planted. I need to finish weeding and digging in compost. I want to rearrange some things in the garden, especially moving the composter to a sunnier spot so it gets a bit warmer than it did last year. I’m waiting for the next sunny day so I can get out there and get to work.

I’m really looking forward to seeing things grow, posting pictures, and most of all, eating yummy garden fresh produce. Hopefully I’ll have plenty to show for my efforts this year.

Over the last week we have given our garden a bit of a makeover, turning it from a relatively boring lawn, deck and patio into a pretty and functional edible garden.  This is my first garden, so I have no idea how well anything will grow, but I’m really enjoying planting things and watching them to see how they do.

Here are the before photos:

And here are the after photos:

I also have some trellis to create an archway over near the composter for peas to grow up, and since these photos were taken we have put some seating on the deck.  To see more photos of the garden visit my flickr.