Growing porcini mushrooms in a summer cottage
Cep, or boletus, refers to tubular mushrooms. It vegetates on sandy lands, but can grow on fertile soil. It is more common under birch trees, less often under oak trees; it prefers mature trees over 20 years old. It lives in the temperate and subarctic zone throughout Eurasia. Fruits in June to October.
Check out this material and watch a video on how to grow porcini mushrooms in a summer house in the open ground. After that you can start cultivation.
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What do porcini mushrooms look like
The cap of the white mushroom is colored in various colors: yellow, brown, brown, red, purple, gray-brown. Coloring depends on the location of the fungus. Also, the hat may be uneven in color: often on the edges it is much lighter than in the center. The cap is tubular, cushion-shaped, grows up to 20 cm in diameter.
The tubules are first white, then become yellowish-greenish or yellowish-olive. The leg is thick, thickened below, with a mesh pattern. Sometimes it is available only in the upper part of the leg. Usually its color matches the color of the hat, only a little lighter. The pulp of the fruiting body is white, dense, odorless and with a nutty taste. The color does not change at the cut point.
See how porcini mushrooms look in these photos:
White mushroom is valued not only for its taste. It is also able to stimulate the secretion of digestive juices. It should be noted that boletus is significantly different from other mushrooms in terms of nutrient content. Despite all its positive qualities, it is noticeably inferior to the boletus in the presence of proteins, and in chanterelle and morel in the content of microelements such as phosphorus and potassium. It should also be noted that the digestibility of protein after drying of the porcini mushroom increases by 80%. Dried mushroom has its own special aroma, so often its powder is used as a seasoning for various dishes.
Cep has other useful qualities: tonic, anti-infectious, wound healing, anti-tumor. Due to the lecithin contained in the fungus, it is useful for anemia and atherosclerosis, liver and kidney diseases, and eye pathologies. It has a positive effect on the immune system, helps break down glycogen and fat, remove excess cholesterol from the body.
These mushrooms growing under different trees have different hats. The darkest mushrooms vegetate under the spruce, and those growing under the pine have a beautiful red-brown hat.
The following describes in detail how to grow ceps in a summer cottage.
How to grow porcini mushrooms: preparing open ground
Boletus has always been considered the king of all mushrooms.Before growing porcini mushrooms in the country, remember that they belong to the group of mycorrhiza, that is, vegetating in symbiosis with the roots of the trees. Therefore, the conditions for growing ceps should be similar to the conditions under which they live in the wild.
Mushrooms grow only under birch, aspen, spruce, beech, oak. They like moderately moist and bright clearings, but not under the open rays of the sun. In dark places, boletus will not grow. Also, the white mushroom does not tolerate the neighborhood with some herbs, for example, fern and hoof. When choosing a place for cultivation of this mushroom, all these factors should be taken into account.
If the corresponding trees live on your garden plot, then you can easily arrange the production of porcini mushroom on an industrial scale. In artificial conditions, without trees, no one has yet managed to grow this mushroom.
To grow ceps in the open ground, you need to take care of the preparation of beds. To do this, dig a pit at a selected site with a width of 2 m and a depth of 30 cm. It is filled with a special mixture, which is prepared in advance. Fallen oak leaves are harvested in spring and mixed with rotten oak wood and clean horse manure. Both oak wood and horse manure should be added to the leaves in a ratio of 5% of their volume. First, the leaves are laid with a layer of about 20 cm, a little horse manure and rotten wood are poured and watered with a 1% solution of ammonium nitrate. Then the exact same new layer is laid. Thus, several layers are performed. After 7-10 days, the mixture should be warmed up to 40 ° C. At this point, it must be mixed so that it becomes a homogeneous mass. After a month, the mixture is ready and it is laid in the pit in the form of layers 10–12 cm thick. In accordance with the correct technology for growing porcini mushrooms, each layer of the mixture is poured with garden soil 6–8 cm thick. The entire thickness of the bed is about 50 cm. In the middle it is made higher so that water slides down from it.
The following describes how to grow mycelium of ceps in the country.
Sowing mycelium and care for porcini mushrooms
There are several ways to grow mycelium of ceps. In the first method, overripe mushrooms are collected and poured with rainwater in a wooden bowl. This mixture is left for a day. Then mix well and filter through a rare cloth. As a result of this procedure, a lot of spore of the cep. They settle to the bottom. For their germination, you can add a little baker's yeast to the water. Then carefully remove the foam with a spoon and drain the upper part of the clear liquid, and place the rest of the solution with spores in the light. You can drain the remaining liquids from different containers into one. After a week, the upper part of the clear liquid is carefully drained, and the settled suspension is poured into bottles and stored in the refrigerator. This suspension can be used for a whole year, but it is better to use it during the first month, since it is at this time that the spores remain viable. This mixture is watered with a prepared bed, and the topsoil is previously removed. You can also pour the mixture around selected trees. Before growing the mycelium of ceps, you must first carefully, without damaging the roots of the trees, remove the soil layer. This is done in order to expose the roots of trees. Then pour them with a suspension and cover again with earth. Pour the suspension at a rate of 400 g for every 30 cm. After that, the soil should be abundantly watered with 4-5 buckets of water.
This video details the cultivation of cep mushrooms in the first way:
In the second method, the mycelium is harvested in places of growth of ceps. For this reason, soil layers of 20 X 30 cm in size and 10–15 cm thick are cut around the fungus. Then they are cut into several parts and planted in a bed or in a selected place so that a layer of earth 5–7 cm thick is above them. The beds are then moisturize and cover a little with leaves and shields so that they are always moist.
White mushrooms should be sown under the same trees under which the planting material was taken. It is noted that mushrooms grow better under trees, whose age is 15–25 years.
You can sow mycelium in another way. Why overripe caps of porcini mushrooms are cut into small pieces and mix them with a small amount of soil. Then moisturize it a little. You can sow and slightly dried mushroom caps. They are laid out on a bed and watered with water. After 5-6 days, they are removed - spores with water have already penetrated into the soil. You can put pieces of a hat under the top layer of soil. It is better to sow mycelium in September.
This video shows how to grow ceps in the second way:
When leaving, the mycelium cannot be overfilled with water, it can die; but in dry autumn it should be moistened with a watering can or spray. Growing and caring for mycelium consists in periodic watering during dry summers. It is advisable to water early in the morning. Mineral fertilizer is not necessary. Single mushrooms appear the next year after planting, and a good harvest is removed 2 years after sowing. Under one tree you can get a bucket of crops. When picking mushrooms, they should be carefully cut, leaving the remains of the legs, so as not to damage the mycelium.
