Well last week garden Master
Jim Duthie gave us some helpful
information about dealing with that
mushrooms or the mushrooms that are
beginning to pop up in our lawns.
He told us about a new poisonous variety
of poisonous mushrooms called death
caps that are starting to show up here
in Idaho and today on you can grow it.
Jim looks at edible mushrooms and
the possibility of growing your own.
He takes us back to last summer when
he introduced us to a local young
entrepreneur who has a passion for growing
mushrooms and has started his own mushroom.
Growing business, take a look.
There are thousands of varieties
of edible mushrooms, some with
very colorful and creative names,
like lions mane. Pearls.
Blue oysters and pink oysters,
and even Turkey tail.
Almost all of us can grow
mushrooms in our yards.
Not the kind you want to eat,
but good edible mushrooms.
We'll introduce you to a local
young entrepreneur who wants
to make this a big business.
19 year old Brody Ferguson
has a passion for mushrooms,
so it all started as an
eighth grade science project.
When I tried to grow mushrooms basically
and it kind of just went from there.
Brodie's friends and family.
I've even given him a few nicknames.
Well, I you know I get lots of jokes.
I'm kind of known as the the
fun guy or the mushroom man,
but you know, they love it.
I've always loved growing mushrooms.
I'd like to expand it beyond mushrooms.
One day I'd love just promoting
sustainability and great all
around products to consumers.
So that's really one of my passion is that
when he first started
more than five years ago,
Brody was one of the few people in
Idaho growing their own mushrooms.
But in recent years, mushroom
growing has exploded in popularity.
I know the majority of the mushroom
growers in the United States and it
is pretty tight knit community that
we all you know kind of can share
information and strains and knowledge.
All mushrooms are fungi,
but not all fungi are mushrooms and
they're neither plant nor animal
belong into a class of their own.
The mushrooms that we see are
actually the fruit of the fungus,
drone mushrooms pretty complicated. Process
Brody starts with a Petri dish with a
mushroom roots or mycelium take hold.
From there, it's expanded
to a liquid culture.
Basically sugar water where millions
of strands of mycelium grow.
The liquid culture is poured
into a bag of sterilized grain.
A nitrogen rich food source that
allows the mushroom culture to expand.
Once fully colonized,
the grain is added to a sawdust
block to give the mushrooms a
medium in which to start fruiting
into recognizable mushrooms.
The whole process typically
takes about two weeks.
Brody's lab is part of his company,
Fergus Fabulous Fungi,
and he's developed a simple kit for
growing your own edible mushrooms.
What I'm doing is basically
making it easy for everybody else.
This is a grow kit.
It's just a fully colonized
block of mushroom mycelium.
So basically, you'll get a
little sawdust block and all you
have to do is take that home,
cut an X in the bag,
missed it a couple of times a
day with a little squirt bottle,
and about two weeks you'd have your.
Own mushrooms that you can just pick
mushrooms. Need moisture so Brody built
a special misting room for the mushrooms
to grow in a highly humid environment.
Supermarkets only carry a few
common mushroom varieties,
but some more exotic varieties are in
high demand for gourmet cooking and
others for their medicinal properties.
Oh yeah, there's way more than what you
just see in your average grocery store.
All the mushrooms I grow they have,
you know, lots of diversity there,
so for anybody, that's.
You know I've never really adventured out,
and trying different mushrooms, you know,
I have lots of different varieties that
have different flavors and textures,
so I'd like everybody else to experience
growing their own mushrooms too,
so it is a fascinating process.
Jim Duthy Idaho's News channel 7.
And one mushroom variety that Brody or
anybody else doesn't grow as Morales,
a favorite among Idaho mushroom hunters.
And that's because morels are almost
impossible to grow commercially.
By the way, Brodie's mushroom
growing kit is on the market,
and you can find them at many
farmers markets around the valley,
as well as at Edwards greenhouses in Boise.