Growing mushrooms in a small garden: yes, it fits

The question arrives regularly, usually with an apology attached: lovely, those mushroom logs, but I only have a four by six metre garden. As if mushrooms expect an estate. The honest answer: a small garden is often better suited than a big bare lawn, because fences and walls provide exactly the shade and shelter mushrooms ask for.

This piece walks through the spots almost every small garden has, and what you can do with them.

Which spot in the garden works for mushrooms?

Find the corner where the grass grows worst. Seriously: where lawn gives up because of shade, an inoculated log finds first-class real estate. Mushrooms want shade, shelter from wind and a bit of moisture. The north side of a fence, behind the shed, under a hedge or at the foot of a large shrub: all fine. Full sun is the only real dealbreaker, logs dry out there before anything happens.

Option 1: one or two logs buried upright

The classic mushroom log does not have to lie down. Short on space? Bury a log one third deep and let it stand upright like a post. That saves floor area, and the buried part draws moisture from the soil so the log dries out far more slowly. Two upright logs with oyster mushroom or shiitake take up less than half a square metre between them and produce for years.

How to get hold of such logs and when to inoculate them is covered in our piece on the inoculation season.

Option 2: a wine cap bed in the border

The wine cap (garden giant) is the only species in our range that needs no log at all: it grows in a layer of wood chips, right between your plants. Half a metre of border, ten centimetres of fresh chips, mix the spawn through, done. The fungus digests the chips into dark, crumbly soil and produces sturdy edible mushrooms along the way. Your border visibly improves, and the space cost is literally zero: the bed was already there.

Option 3: the bucket on the balcony

No garden but a balcony on the shady side? A bucket with holes drilled in it, filled with pasteurised straw and loose spawn, is the smallest outdoor nursery in existence. Oyster mushrooms grow straight out through the holes. In summer the bucket likes a splash of water every day, beyond that it is waiting and harvesting.

Option 4: the stump you already had

Ever had a tree removed, with the stump still sitting there? That is not a leftover, that is a growing opportunity. A fresh broadleaf stump takes drilling and inoculating beautifully, and because the roots still supply moisture, there is almost nothing to do afterwards. A stump with chicken of the woods or oyster mushroom even clears itself away slowly, which on a small plot is a bonus.

What can you expect from so few square metres?

More than you think. A well-colonised one metre log easily yields a family meal per flush, two to three times a year, for years on end. Add a bucket and a wood chip bed and an average season produces a serious number of kilos of edible mushrooms from a garden that otherwise just housed the bins.

Start small: one log and one bucket. If you enjoy it, the nursery grows along with your enthusiasm. And do send us a photo of your shady corner if you are unsure what fits, we like thinking along.