YORKTON - The Yorkton and District Horticultural Society had a great meeting recently: our special guest was Dana from Mehan Flowers, telling us about her flower business. It was very interesting, and made us all wish for spring! Thank you for joining us, Dana! You can visit Dana online at www.mehanflowers.com
A special thank you, as well, to the wonderful staff at the Yorkton Public Library for all their help with this event.
Stay in touch and find out what’s happening with the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society; visit us at www.yorktonhort.ca
Tell me, does you kitchen table have an array of seed catalogues, fanned out over it, just waiting to tempt you with some new and interesting plants to add to your garden order this spring? I know ours does, and one thing that I noticed on offer were mushroom kits. Have you ever grown mushrooms?
There are several advantages to trying this gardening experiment. The kits come with everything we need to get started. Unlike other plants, we don’t need to assemble soil or containers.
And from what I have read about them, we can grow mushrooms no matter where we live; we don’t have to worry about wide windowsills to hold our seedlings. It sounds like a very adaptable project that just takes a few weeks!
If we ordered a mushroom kit, we would receive a “mycelium block” or “fruiting block”. It is in a special mushroom bag. We would soak this in water, then keep it moist and in indirect sunlight. In a few weeks, we’ll have mushrooms to enjoy!
And good news, I also read that we can rehydrate the block again and get a second or third flush of mushrooms. It may not be the same for mushrooms kits from all companies, but still, it would be something that is great fun to try. I’m already thinking about mushrooms fried in butter on toast, aren’t you?
As with all gardening, the crop we harvest will depend on many factors such as the company the mushroom kit came from, have we prepared the block properly, are we keeping it in the right place, and are we taking care of it the proper way.
The seed catalogues that I was looking at offer four kinds of mushroom kits: black oyster, a meaty mushroom that is described as one that “can also be used as an alternative to meat or poultry”. There is a variety called “Lion’s Mane” which is said to have a flavor like crab or lobster, and “can be used as a seafood replacement in vegan recipes”. Then there is an exotic looking mushroom called “Pink Oyster” and had a meat-like flavor like ham. Then there is the “White Oyster” which seems to be ideal flavor-companions for all kinds of recipes. Don’t they all sound good? There’s probably a wide variety of kits to choose from out there.
A friend of our grew mushrooms one year, and said that she was able to harvest an amazing amount of mushrooms.
Maybe this might be the “something different” that we try this year! Do a little homework about it, and see if you’d like to try it!
Another gardening avenue might be microgreens and sprouts; maybe we can chat about that another time when we get together for tea.
Thank you to our friends at YTW for their great work; have a lovely week!
