Dining In

Taking the Drawdown list at face value, the 100 measures listed are potential candidates for reducing my family's carbon footprint (including biochar, #71, which occupies so much of my time). Many of the measures do not pertain to someone in my situation. I am owner of only 1 acre, mostly forested, on a hillside in a temperate climate zone. Yet, there are some I can pursue that, right or wrong, are ranked even higher than biochar.

The first is: "#3 - Reduced Food Waste." For our family, there is some room for improvement with this. I am trying to eat what I grow and what I preserve, but sometimes the bounty is too great. I need to give more food away, at least until the quality of my produce will allow me to specialize and sell at farmers' markets. Mushrooms may be the ticket. Oyster mushrooms seem most promising, since I might soon be able to clone great quantities. Foods we don't eat go to composting (#60), so we don't truly waste any of it.

Related to #3 is the next measure on Drawdown's list: "#4 - Plant-Rich Diet." This is a most welcome requirement. I recommend retirement as early as possible, since I have found it allows time for lots of cooking, but even if you can't afford to retire yet, I recommend making cooking a priority. I can hardly stand to eat out anymore; restaurant food is either so disgusting or too expensive, or both.

I say this because last year I discovered a handy feature in some of the cookbooks my wife has purchased over the years, but had never been put to use. The "Taste of Home" annual recipes
have a special index based on ingredients. It makes it easy to find a recipe that contains what you have on hand. No longer do I bother with questionable online recipes which offer such searches. I just grab one of the dozen "Taste of Home" books on our shelf and find a kitchen-tested recipe that gives me something to look forward to every day. Adding any missing ingredients to our shopping list allows us to buy them anytime we happen to be in a supermarket. As the pantry fills with staples, less and less shopping is needed to make whatever recipes are chosen. By selecting recipes containing produce that we grow, we are able to enjoy amazing food at affordable prices while also achieving measure #3.

Who knew that saving the planet could be so enjoyable?!!

Future Farmers of America: You and Me

If the U.S. collapses all the way back into a herder/cultivator society, that should alleviate many of the problems inherent in our food system, but it won't necessarily protect us from the ravages of climate change. But, since farming will be so popular, more people could learn climate farming. Jacke and Toensmeier, in Edible Forest Gardening, express the opinion that food forests will be essential to feeding the population, given the pressures of climate, energy, and biodiversity. +Albert Bates is writing a series that discusses climate ecoforestry, which includes agroforestry along with permaculture. The Green Party platform includes many important points on the topic of forestry, but fails to explore its vast potential for restoring the environment and creating livelihoods.

Apple tree, comfrey and currant bush guild by London Permaculture

Over the past four years, I have become minimally adept at making and using biochar, gardening, raising mushrooms, and mitigating stormwater runoff. Forest gardening is an ongoing interest. Now would be a good time to get close to communities and organizations which practice the many and expanding methods of forest restoration and permaculture. Few who aren't indentured to the powers that be will be able to find any other means by which to live.

More to come on this subject, but keeping it brief this time leaves you more time for the inspiring reads linked above.

Maximizing Health Benefits from Cultivated Crops

Many of  mushrooms' medicinal properties come from agents they use to protect themselves from pathogens in their environment. Mycelial hyphae are only one cell wall thick, so they must be well armed to fight off whatever threats come their way.

Plants behave similarly to mycelium by manufacturing chemical agents to stave off invaders. It would seem that these special chemicals would also be of use to humans who cook and consume their hosts, just as when they eat mushrooms.

Without going into a plant by plant breakdown of these medicinal compounds, we can still consider what it takes to maximize their presence in our food. Just growing and cooking your own food is the most important step to improving nutritional and pharmacological content in your diet.

Some vegetables lose a large percentage of their nutrients in the transition from farm to table. Considering those from the list of important nutrient sources in my last post,

• Produce items to eat ASAP after harvesting include strawberries, mushrooms, parsley, snap beans, and spinach. 
• Tomatoes are best ripened on the vine. Grocery store tomatoes are often picked green and ripened on the way to market, but are not as nutritious as vine-ripened tomatoes.
• Darker tomatoes have more lycopene than light colored varieties. 
• Garlic should be left uncooked for 10 minutes after cutting or pressing to allow a chemical reaction that creates allicin to occur.

Plants get the majority of their chemical constituents from the surrounding soil, so rich soil is the key to maximizing plant food and medicinal value. Healthy plants, grown in healthy soil have a richer store of medicinal agents, since they did not need to expend them all fighting off soil-borne foes. Healthy soil is, principally, deep topsoil with good structural, textural, mineral, hydrological, and biological properties. Organic matter is a key component of healthy soil. Biochar and earthworms multiply and stabilize the effects of added organic matter.

Photo by Charles Wiriawan

Organic gardening and farming are not only good for the environment, but also a path to High Performance Agriculture, producing the most nutrition, yield, and pharmacological benefit.

The most healthy plants, according to Amish farmer +John Kempf, are those that have attained the pinnacle in his plant's version of Maslow's hierarchy, going beyond microbial resistance to being able to chemically fend off attacks by insects through manufacturing of plant secondary metabolites (PSM's). I think a good test of how well my soil and plants are doing on this score is to see how disease free they are when grown at our community garden surrounded by other plots whose owners often ignore organic principles, leading to an external environment rife with biological threats. Progress was made this year, but we still have a long way to go.

Help Yourself

Before alleviating injuries and prolonged neglect with herbal remedies, an even more fundamental step is giving our bodies their best fighting chance by supplying them with all the resources they need. Following the general rules prescribed by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans is important, but if people are like plants, then something akin to Liebig's Law of the Minimum also pertains. The Law of the Minimum states that the overall health of a plant is limited by scarcity of the nutrient(s) that it most lacks.

The Dietary Guidelines tells us which nutrients tend toward deficiency in American diets. These include potassium, dietary fiber, choline, magnesium, calcium, and vitamins A, D, E, and C. Two others, iron and folate, are important for women. Limiting the amount of meat in one's diet makes access to these nutrients even more challenging, but I believe that the crops and poultry I raise now or in the near future on a relatively small area will be sufficient to satisfy all of my nutritional demands. Here's how I hope to get my victuals:

• Calcium (for nerve transmission and cardiovascular system) - dark leafy greens
• Potassium (prevent bone loss) - potatoes (sweet or regular), beet greens, white beans
• Fiber (lower heart disease risk) - beans
• Choline (prevent muscle & liver damage) - eggs
• Magnesium (regulate diverse biochemical reactions in the body, including protein synthesis, muscle and nerve function, blood glucose control, and blood pressure regulation; essential for energy) - green leafy vegetables, nuts, legumes, potatoes
• Vitamin A (eyes, skin, immune system) - darkly colored orange or green vegetables such as carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, and kale; and orange fruits such as cantaloupe and peaches
• Vitamin C (wound healing, brain function) - strawberries, kiwi, peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, and spinach
• Vitamin D (strong bones) - sun-dried shiitake mushrooms, other mushrooms, eggs
• Vitamin E (antioxidant) - nuts, green leafy vegetables

Photo by Olearys

For staples, calorie dense crops like grain corn, peanuts, cabbage and winter squash will also be important. The only thing to add is watermelon, which is also a staple (since it is 95% water). At this point, lacking nut and egg production, I will continue to rely on purchased products to satisfy some of these requirements, but dietary self-sufficiency appears to be coming into reach. 

When You've Got Your Herbs, You've Got Just About Everything

After a year, our reishi totem logs are bearing fruit. We cultivated reishi mushrooms (also known as the immortality mushroom or the panacea mushroom) strictly for medicinal purposes. With only six totems, we will probably need more to supply ourselves year-round with a daily dose of reishi tea, but if it wards off cancer, that would certainly be worth it. Reishi is so powerful because of the hundreds of different compounds it provides, specifically polysaccharides and triterpenoids, many of which are immunomodulators. These compounds mainly serve to stimulate macrophages, which activate production of natural killer cells, T-cells, and tumor-necrosis factors. Think of it as homeopathic chemotherapy. We normally carry cancer cells in our bodies, but that's no reason to let them have their way with us.

Though reishi mushrooms could be grown just as ornamental objects, what pleases the eye does little for the rest of the body. Likewise in the plant kingdom, not all ornamental or herbal garden plants are of known medicinal value, but many are. It's nice to feed bees and butterflies, but if I can derive some direct benefit from a plant, it would be wasteful to pass up those opportunities. Heretofore I have given no thought to many plants in my garden for their medicinal value and, consequently, have left them afield without accepting their gifts.

Forthwith, I pledge to preserve and administer herbs in my garden for their reputed medicinal purposes. In time, I hope to wean myself off prescription drugs or know of suitable substitutes if push comes to shove. Here's what I currently have to work with:

• Garlic            Antibacterial, clears lung congestion, lowers blood sugar and cholesterol, improves circulation, antihistamine.
• Parsley          Relieves gas pain
• Sage               Reduces fever, heals sores in mouth and throat, laryngitis treatment; slows Alzheimer's; long life
• Thyme           Prevents colds and cold symptoms (sore throat, congestion); Cures athletes foot, ringworm; Antiseptic
• Calendula      Relieves sore skin, heals skin and mucous membrane wounds
• Chickweed     Relieves skin irritation (use fresh)
• Red Clover    Alleviates skin irritations, coughs, sore throat
• Dandelion      Leaves help cleanse skin; root aids the liver & are also chemotherapy substitute
• Peppermint   For upset tummy 
• Rosemary      Improve varicose veins, strengthen heart, prevent arteriosclerosis; stimulates circulation; sooth pulled muscles; relieves arthritis; digestive
• Cayenne        Improves circulation in cold hands & feet; relieves arthritis; relieves sore throat
• Borage           Antidepressant

I was planning to replenish my stock of campho-phenique today, but instead I think I'll start by picking calendula flowers.

Herbs - Medicine for the Rest of Us

When I took up growing mushrooms, the thing that most attracted me to them was their potential health benefits, i.e. their medicinal value. My preferred delivery path is eating or drinking, often in combination with other tasty ingredients, rather than pill form.

Now that our reishi mushrooms are growing on log totems, I'm looking forward to drinking plenty of reishi tea. While I'm at it, dropping a green tea bag into the pot will be an easy way double the immunity boosting power of the brew and help ensure against prostate cancer. Drinking several cups a day will be easy in this climate.

After realizing the magic in mushrooms to cure and prevent major ailments, I also realized that I've foregone potentially significant benefits from herbs as well, merely because our FDA and medical establishment steers us down the prescription drug path. It would be great if my wife and I could cut our pharmacy bill by growing medicinal herbs and cook at least part of our medicine into meals we eat.

Photo by Eugene Birchall

There is a new continuing education class being offered by the College of Southern Maryland this October on using medicinal herbs. I'm hoping to enroll. You pay $100+ for lab fees, but get to take home maybe ten herbal potions that they help you to concoct.

Demystifying the Woods

Photo by Brett Whaley CC BY-NC 2.0

The University of Maryland Extension's Watershed Steward program imitates the Master Gardener and the Master Naturalist programs in acquiring volunteers to be "boots on the ground" promoting care of their respective commons. There is another similar program called the Maryland Woodland Stewards program that has been around for decades under the title "The Coverts Program." The name changed in 2007, probably so as not to let it get mixed up with so many other covert programs with obscure names in this deep state vortex surrounding our nation's Capital.

The Woodland Stewards program (not covert in the usual sense) is interested in people who have acreage of forest (coverts, if you will) that they own and/or manage. I don't think they would be too interested in me, since I am responsible for less than an acre and I'm planning on converting it to a food forest.

On the other hand, there are many links to biochar and mushrooms that would make Maryland Woodland Stewards of interest to me. Before proceeding with my plans to replace most of the trees on my property, I should avail myself of the booklet and workshop entitled, "The Woods in Your Backyard," and another, "Your Woodlot and Your Wallet," with relevance to raising mushrooms. There are also resources about wood energy, which could educate me about better using the heat from making biochar. The presentations from two years' worth of MWS classes are also downloadable, along with a great number of other resources for folks like me who need more than the average level of knowledge about trees of the forest.

Eco-solution for E. Coli

When I became aware, a couple of years ago, that roof runoff may contain some heavy metals that could potentially find their way into your food garden, I took a bucket of biochar and dumped it into the bottom of my rain barrel. Problem solved. What I didn't realize is that I was solving another (bigger) problem of roof runoff - e. coli bacteria.

To be honest, my quick fix may not have solved the problems; (a) because I didn't really have a problem - my rain barrel feeds my ornamental rain garden, and (b) the biochar filter inside a rain barrel should probably be a little more meticulously constructed and maintained.

Now that I am about to set up a rain barrel that will be used to spray my mushroom logs and save money on my water bill, I definitely need to think about the contaminants in the water. The draft Certified Naturally Grown standards for mushroom growers does not address roof runoff specifically, but does cover surface water. Could a biochar filter be used to meet the CNG standard? Let's explore.

The water standards for mushrooms are the same as for irrigation water. A study done at Rutgers University found that the major concern for roof runoff is e. coli contamination, rather than heavy metals (though lead and zinc warrant measurement). This bacterial contamination could stem from dead animals and feces, particularly in gutters (but also in rain barrels and on the roof, itself). Occasionally, the study found e. coli in excess of the limit coming from a roof in their study.

It turns out that biochar captures and sequesters e. coli bacteria, as +Kathleen Draper points out, referring to research done at McGill University showing that biochar filters out e. coli. The excellent thesis by Shoieb Akaram Arief Ismail shows how large pore biochar with particle sizes up to 2 cm (such as the wood based product that I make with my pyramid kiln) is a significantly better e. coli filter (a couple orders of magnitude) than sandy soil alone.

Granted, the filtering action in this study took place over 24 hours, but some reduction of e. coli could be expected by less than a minute of residence time in a rain barrel partially filled with biochar. The practical limit is how badly the water flow would be reduced by the filter. This can be discovered empirically. The biochar should be rinsed thoroughly prior to adding to the rain barrel in order to prevent washout of fine particles which could clog the outlet. In addition, gutters should be cleaned regularly and the biochar filter changed annually when the rain barrel is scrubbed clean for the season.

The rain barrel volume you are sacrificing to the filter may require a larger barrel. I got a good deal on a 65 gallon barrel, which I think will do just fine. Even a 55 gallon barrel should be big enough. For my homeys, Baltimore is having a truckload sale of them and Calvert County has a half-price deal for residents that comes with a free workshop, both in April.

Avoiding Poison Mushrooms (at the Market)

Not all edible organic mushrooms are safe to eat.  As +Paul Stamets points out in Mycelium Running - How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, some mushrooms from China, for example, might have accumulated heavy metals from the high degree of ambient pollution where they were grown, yet still be considered organic. The draft standards for Certified Naturally Grown (CNG) mushrooms should mitigate this problem, as hyperaccumulation of heavy metals is built into its safeguards. To wit:

• Substrate may not be directly placed on any surface contaminated with heavy metals or other synthetic pollutants. 

For growers, CNG offers a clearer path to producing wholesome mushrooms than the organic program followed by most other agricultural producers. The National Organic Program (NOP) requirements may take measures beyond what should reasonably be applied to an organic mushroom farm, since fungi are nourished and cared for differently than plants and animals. However, if a beginning grower could convince themselves that they comply with the CNG standard, and try to align that with the NOP requirements, as long as they are not grossing over $5,000 of organic product sales per year, then they should self-certify as "organic." 

Beyond $5K in sales, official certification is required. At that point, I would probably opt for the CNG certification, rather than organic. After an inspection by one of the incumbent experts (possibly +Tradd Cotter, himself), as the only CNG grower in my area (the closest is vegetable grower, Working Over Thyme Farm in Brandywine), I could then be an inspector of new mushroom farms seeking the CNG label.

As far as buying mushrooms, my advice is to try to buy organic mushrooms, and when the certified naturally grown label for mushrooms becomes available, opt for that. In either case, you'll be safeguarding yourself from pesticides and other poisons that you could get in mushrooms which seem to eat about anything fed to them.

I Wannabe the Fungi Guy

Mark Jones of Sharondale Farm in Virginia talks about his vision for the relationship of towns and communities to fungi. This whimsical vision includes the idea that every place will one day have its own mushroom cultivator, just as today every place has its own McDonald's. In the appropriate tech future that we are about to enter, this should be one of its finer elements. Since I may be the most advanced cultivator in my neighborhood, I might well look to be the Papa Smurf of Calvert Shores (aka Chesapeake Ranch Estates).

Before venturing into a business, knowing your market is key. One of my favorite things about Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation, by +Tradd Cotter, is the back matter regarding the various species worth cultivating. I particularly appreciate the information on marketing each type of mushroom. +Paul Stamets has a similar section in Mycelium Running - How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, which also contains information that can be used to connect with customers. Together, they give prospective growers many good choices beyond the usual shiitake, oyster, garden giant trio.

Depending on how many of my new logs fruit this year, we may start selling shiitakes next year at the farmer's market. Oysters shouldn't be difficult, either. I hope to see the golden oyster mushroom logs begin to fruit this year, and Sharondale Farms has supplied useful tips for ways to grow oysters indoors on agricultural waste. My two beds of garden giants are also primed for the season and could proliferate this year with a little help from Papa Smurf. And there are sundry small batches of other species we hope to harvest for our own consumption. Almond portobellos are one of the more exotic species we will be trying soon.

That should be plenty to get us into the mushroom business around here. The question is, what would be a big seller? Almond portobellos and garden giants will be a new sight to many shoppers here. What should we consider adding to the line of exotic species that we offer in the future?  The following table summarizes some of the information from Cotter's book that could help in this decision.

Genus	Ease of Cultivation	Market Connection
Agaricus	Intermediate	Have some cooking to entice buyers
Agrocybe	Easy	Bundle in paper, exposing only caps
Auricularia	Easy	Demonstrate rehydration method
Calocybe	Intermediate	Tropical
Chlorophyllum	Intermediate	Fruits in the fall
Clitocybe	Intermediate	Good in soups and gumbos
Coprinus	Easy	Extremely short shelf-life
Fistulina	Intermediate	A summer favorite; meat substitute
Flammulina	Intermediate	Ice/water bath; salad/soup topper
Fomes	Advanced	Powder or water extract - medicinal
Ganoderma	Easy	Medicinal orientation of display
Grifola	Intermediate	Sold locally; Cook for aroma; Medicinal delicacy
Hericium	Intermediate	Sold locally; Novelty for some; Seafood substitute
Hypholoma	Easy	Wrap in bundles/clusters
Hypsizygus	Easy	Help customers appreciate differences between species
Laetiporus	Advanced	Chicken substitute
Lentinula	Easy	Sold locally; the superstars; sell caps (mix stems in dog food)
Lepiota	Intermediate	Sell caps (eat stems or put in dog food)
Macrocybe	Intermediate	Tropical
Macrolepiota	Intermediate	Sell caps (eat stems or put in dog food)
Pholiota	Easy	Sell to Asian markets or restaurants, esp. Japanese
Piptoporus	Advanced	Powder or water extract - medicinal
Pleurotus	Easy	Sold locally; Explain differences in flavors of strains sold
Sparassis	Advanced	Crunchy, even when sauteed
Stropharia	Easy	Pre-sell to restaurants - does not store well
Trametes	Easy	Powder or water extract - medicinal
Volvariella	Intermediate	Tastes better than button; Sell to Asian markets; Sell primordia

Oyster Gardening

I was sold on the garden plot that we began renting last year after spotting a bouquet of oyster mushrooms growing out of an old stump at ground level directly adjacent the gate. Since then, in addition to the tremendous amount of vegetables we've reaped from the garden, oyster mushrooms have been a frequent enhancement to our meals.

My garden there consists of several raised beds, separated with sunken paths that are filled with wood chips. These wood chips eventually break down and provide nutritious mulch for the following year's plantings. I was very happy to see one particularly deep path of wood chips thick with mycelium when I dug it up early this year. It's possible that the oyster mushroom mycelium had run over to the path, as it was only about 10 feet away from the stump. If oyster mushrooms come up in that vicinity later this year, that will be the most likely cause.

In any case, I aim to get oyster mushrooms from this garden path, even if I have to inoculate the wood chips myself. According to +Tradd Cotter, oyster mushrooms will grow on wood chips, though they are traditionally cultivated on logs. They are not rhizomorphic, so their rate of growth through the shady path won't be as fast as, say, garden giants. Myceliated logs buried in a bed of wood chips would be ideal. In his book, Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation, Cotter shows how to use cardboard spawn to inoculate logs. If my bunker spawn from oyster inoculated coffee grounds produces mushrooms, that could be another route to getting oysters into my paths.

Oysters are supposed to be the easiest mushrooms to grow. I have had minimal success, so far. However, since my shiitakes are all doing great, I think it's just a matter of time before I master cultivating this species.

Fight Fungus with Fungus

The rise in global temperature is alarming. The IPCC has told us what will happen if temperatures climb 5 C.
The COP-21 agreement aims to keep it to 1.5 C (already baked into the cake), but 2 C at the high end. The effects of that will be bad enough, but don't expect that this limit will be maintained unless we do two things in the very near term: (1) stop expanding fossil fuel extraction (and put an immediate moratorium on fracking while the truth about methane leakage is investigated) , and (2) reforest, (especially in the tropics). A new study points out that we can sequester carbon much faster by regrowing forests in devastated tropical areas than by simply maintaining the remaining old growth forests.

Tropical rain forests are not the only ones at risk from climate change. The U.S. Forest Service just put out their futures projection of the northern forests, which extends all the way down here to Maryland. The outlook is grievous with myriad environmental insults being thrown at the forest ecosystems faster than they can respond. Our intervention is needed to preserve these forests and to restore their health. Perhaps the best way to do this is through improving soil health.

While mycorrhizal fungi is conducive to healthy trees, running saprophytic fungi is even more fundamental, as it builds healthy soil. At the same time, some strains can dominate fungal parasites that capitalize on the stresses imposed on forest ecosystems by climate change and population growth.

Some of the edible species +Paul Stamets recommends for this, I already grow (oyster mushroom, garden giant, and turkey tail). Other recommended species include clustered woodlover and psilocybes. Mycelium can be cultivated very rapidly and then moved into damaged or threatened woodlands. One indicator for the best places to run mycelium is the presence or absence of dominant saprophytic species. These mushrooms fit well in forest garden patches, since the gardener is more likely to be there when they are ready to pick. In either case, eating these mushrooms requires a more rigorous identity verification since they are growing among other, non-edible types.

How to Make Forests Renewable

A number of Maryland counties give out awards to people and businesses for excellence in recycling. This year, Calvert County has followed suit. I am deeply involved in recycling for the purpose of building better soil and would like to apply for one of the awards in order to bring more publicity to the potential for recycling woody waste in the form of biochar.

My recycling bona fides could also include acceleration of carbon cycling, which is a major element of what +Paul Stamets describes as mycoforestry. When forests are logged unsustainably (as they have been repeatedly in the U.S. since the settlers arrived), then many of the extant fungi have nothing to feed on after a few years and they die away. This interrupts the carbon cycle, reducing the quality of soil with every new tree harvest. The remedy Stamets prescribes is to insure that logging residues are left in close contact with the forest floor. This gives saprophytic fungi the opportunity to thrive on the dead wood, enriching the soil, leading to more rapid regrowth, giving the endophytes and mycorrhizae an opportunity to bridge the gap.

As a forest gardener, I like to get wood chips dumped on my property to use for food forest patches. The chips could well end up as mulch elsewhere, but when my place is closer, the tree guys would just as soon leave them with me. Either way, it's recycling, but I get it down to the soil fungi right away by keeping the chips no more than 1 foot deep. After 6 months, I add horse manure and biochar to accelerate the composting process, engaging a host of other microbes to break down the dead wood into food for plants.

In addition to encouraging persistence of native mycelia subsequent to logging, Stamets suggests dusting new tree roots with edible mycorrhizal mushroom spores before planting. Some of the recommended species are chanterelles on oaks and sweet tooth on conifers. That means going back to harvest the mushrooms in subsequent years. If these edible mushroom spores are used, then it isn't a good idea to also include spores for other non-mushroom-producing mycorrhizae, because they tend to outcompete the edibles. Sweet tooth also can be found under other deciduous trees, so I might try out this suggestion when I begin planting my forest garden.

Morel Dilemma

+Paul Stamets, in Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, gives tentative support to using wood ash as an ingredient for the growing medium on an outdoor morel mushroom patch. +Tradd Cotter, author of Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation, says that Eastern U.S. morels found in the wild don't seem to have a preference for burnt areas. Tradd's research points to use of nonnutritive media for morel sclerotia to form and an underlying nutritive zone for hyphae to grow into. I am thinking that uncharged biochar (as opposed to wood ash) could act as the nonnutritive medium instead of the peat or coir Cotter recommends. After all, biochar would be a lot more native than peat from Canada or coir from the tropics.

I have a tulip poplar in my backyard, conveniently near my log spawn run area where I could make a morel rain garden by berming around the dripline and directing overflow from my rain barrel into the depression. There I could set up two plots, one with coir and one with biochar.  Then, using a slurry from a single morel species, I could inoculate the beds and see what grows. This, of course, means that I have to find time in the coming weeks to hunt for morels.

I wish it were as easy as this video makes homegrowing morels out to be, but you can get a general idea of how slurries are used to inoculate and how much fun it would be to harvest the mushrooms. Stamets and Cotter both cover spore mass slurries in their books.

Pharmaceutical Fungi

Mushrooms are like insects - there are some that can cause disease, but the vast majority are beneficial. The proof of whether many of the mushrooms I started cultivating last year will emerge will begin soon. I am very confident of having a good crop of shiitakes, as the few logs I started in early 2015 are already wanting to explode with mushrooms. The lion's mane, hen of the woods, reishi, and three types of oyster mushroom are still in question. I am getting turkey tail, but I can also find natives quite easily.

The turkey tail tea I am sipping while composing this may ward off prostate cancer, should it darken my backdoor. Paul Stamets devotes a page-and-a-half to the medicinal value of turkey tail in his book, Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World. In my upcoming talk to Calvert Eats Local, I plan to concentrate on the medicinal value of gourmet mushrooms that are often available commercially in our area. These include those just mentioned and two others, almond portobello and garden giant, which I am also attempting to grow. Their medicinal value ranges from helping the immune, cardiovascular, and/or digestive system to fighting cancer.

Mushrooms offer some unique compounds that you probably won't get from eating plants. Since I have eaten plants all my life, but few mushrooms, chances are that my body hasn't received its due from the fungal kingdom. Common ways to get these compounds are by either cooking the mushrooms at low temperature (< 220 F) or by extracting them with alcohol. Some of the compounds that come out with alcohol won't be extracted through cooking, and visa-versa. Since taking a homemade alcohol extract of shiitake, I've instantly enjoyed what seems to be better digestion and sounder sleep.

The medicinal benefits from shiitake also extend to helping the immune system, blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, and cardiovascular system.  They are anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic and they suppress many cancer cell types, e.g. breast, prostate, colorectal. They are also delicious. One cannot eat enough mushrooms to get the full range of unique benefits found in each species, but extracts and teas could supplement your diet to help. If you have a particular medical concern, then there is probably a mushroom that you can benefit by eating a lot of, while supplementing with others.

One mushroom that many people would like to eat a lot of is the morel, mainly for its special flavor, but also for immunity support. I don't cultivate them yet, but finding them this year should be easier with the help of guidance from one of our area's premier mycophiles. Things to look for are stands of tulip poplar in areas where moisture collects. Searching should begin for black morels when average night air temperature is above 50 F. Morels appear for about 6 weeks in early spring.

Oyster Farms on Land

Let me clear up some common misconceptions about mushrooms. We used to have a saying in the Navy, that the Combat Information Center (CIC) watch was like being a mushroom, since we were always kept in the dark and fed sh*t. The truth about mushrooms is a little more nuanced. Yes, they do enjoy shade, but most tolerate a bit of direct sun, and most grow in the soil or on wood, though some are cultivated in manure or compost.

It's the manure part that bothers people, leading them to eschew mushrooms. In fact, I'm not particularly thrilled about buying button mushrooms from the store, seeing all the growing media residue still clinging to them. Thing is, the manure, if used, was probably composted and possibly topped by a pasteurized,non-fecal casing soil to remove pathogens and interfering fungi in the process of being implanted with the fungus you'd be eating. That's better than you can say for the soils that grow many of your vegetables. Farmers often apply manure to their soil, allowing as little as 3 months for natural processes to kill off pathogens before harvesting the crop. So, wash your vegetables, as well as your mushrooms, before cooking or consuming them.

We could do better by the Bay than to spread manure on farmland. About 20% of Maryland farms are restricted in the types or amounts of manure they can use now because of the Phosphorus Management Tool (PMT) regulations. Phosphorus is an important pollutant to manage, but Nitrogen is also a growing concern, having negative impacts on at least 5% of affected ecosystems' endangered species. Much of the sandy soils in the Coastal Plain don't accumulate nutrients and pass them through quickly to aquifers and waterways. Rather than base manure application limits on soil phosphorus content, we should be looking at nutrient flows.

One of compost's key characteristics is that it holds on to chemicals, such as phosphorus, acting as a filter in the soil to limit the amount of nutrients that make it through to the Bay. The same can be said of biochar and mycelium, but to an ever greater degree. Blaming the PMT on the decline in the number of Maryland farms ignores the whole issue of nutrient pollution, while the PMT ignores the flow of nutrients from the soil. Adopting a more rigorous protocol for reducing nutrient pollution seems to be warranted, but we need to avoid burdening small farms with added costs and management effort. Options in the PMT for measuring reductions in actual pollution to waterways, rather than strict limits on fertilizers, could be the way to go.

Of all the methods mentioned, I think mycelium is the most promising (though farming with biochar would do enormous good). In Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, Paul Stamets discusses implanting bunker spawn in trenches to filter runoff from areas of concentrated pollution. I'm starting to do this on my own property as I acquire mycelium in my various experiments.
Oyster mushroom mycelium is supposed to be good for this use. Once the mycelium is established it can flourish, if fed new wood chips occasionally. The great thing about it is that farmers could harvest and sell the highly nourished oyster mushrooms that would grow out of these mycofilters.

Wholesome Eating

My enthusiasm for gardening built on my interest in biochar, but we have an even more compelling reason to seek abundant vegetables. When you garden, your sunk costs burden you to recover as much as you can by consuming the fruits (and vegetables) of your labors. Dietary guidelines point out that eating vegetables is key, especially for those plagued by diabetes. Since my wife has that condition and my father contracted it in his demise, gardening may be one of the best things we can do.

Last year's crop brought in enough food to overflow our shelves with canned pickle and tomato products. I expect that to happen again as our soil becomes healthier every year. Biochar is to thank for much of that improvement, but drip irrigation under black plastic sheet, decayed wood chip mulch (fostering more mycelium), cover crops, legume inoculants, double digging, pollinator host plants, forking vice plowing, compost, mycorrhizae additions, crop rotation, keeping soil covered, soil sampling and nutrient adjustment, and opening the canopy for more sunlight all have helped. This year, I am hoping to incorporate Garden Giant mushrooms in planting beds shaded by taller crops such as sorghum, tomatoes, eggplant, and lima beans. These mushrooms, in addition to being deliciously healthy to eat, are helpful to their garden companions' growth and yields. 

Another mushroom we are hoping to see more of this year is the oyster. We have been blessed with a patch of this found growing naturally near one of our gardens, and since, have tried to cultivate it on logs in brown, blue, and yellow variations. So far, we have had little luck. I grew some on coffee ground this year, but the yield was very low. With oyster mushrooms, we could receive many benefits to counter diabetes including decreased obesity and regulated blood sugar. 

We inoculated some logs with lion's mane mushroom spawn last year, and would love to see those come to fruition. Lion's mane could help regrow some of the deteriorated nerves in my wife's feet that cause her debilitating pain. If we ever see maitake mushrooms fruit from the buried logs we went to great lengths to cultivate last year, they may also help with blood glucose. 

Where we had the most immediate success so far, is shiitake logs. This year should be tremendous for shiitakes with ten times as many logs prepared. By fall, we should be harvesting armloads! Shiitake improves immunity, blood pressure, sugar, cholesterol, the cardiovascular system, and the digestive system.  It has antiviral, antibacterial (e.g. strep, staph, candida), and anti-inflammatory qualities. Something new I am trying with shiitakes is to make an alcohol extract from them. This will make certain beneficial compounds available to take in easy spoonfuls, rather than rely on cooking the mushrooms daily.

Local folk who want to hear a bit more about the benefits and methods of cultivating mushrooms are welcome to attend the March meeting of Calvert Eats Local where I will be giving a presentation and sharing a delicious shiitake dish.

Mycoforestry

Today I found what appears to be a bunch of clustered wood lovers fruiting on dead roots near my "farm."  I'm assiduously verifying the identity because this little brown mushroom has some deadly near-look-a-likes.  If they are hypholoma capnoides (aka clustered wood lovers), I might try to cultivate some - on wood chips.
Mr. Hanners, our local mushroom mogul, gets his thousands of logs delivered by tree service companies for a fee.  One thing the innumerable tree service companies are happy to drop off at no charge are fresh wood chips.  We had a pile conveniently dumped in our driveway early this year and now I have decided that several more are needed.
A byproduct of portable, powered equipment, and thus destined for near-term decline, wood chips are usually made from ramial wood, i.e. less than 4" diameter branches, in order to save on hauling or to avoid creating brush piles.
I have a solution to both of these problems.  Not only is hauling of bulky branches unnecessary, but forests would also benefit if wood chips were left behind and used as mulch for saplings.  My second solution is that, once we reach the point where it is too expensive to chip wood, purposefully constructed slash piles make an instant low-emissions biochar-generating burn opportunity.  Again, the biochar could be used to amend the soil for young plants in the vicinity.  Since biochar needs an initial charge of microbes and nutrients, the rich soil under the previously laid mulch beds would be good places for spreading biochar.
Along with these two measures, the forests subsequently benefit from the proliferation of various saprophytic fungi that break down the wood chips and leave a profusion of exudates, chitin, and complex carbohydrates that nourish trees and their soil buddies.   Mycorrhizae also flourish in biochar-rich soil.  The resulting humus is a living, networked organism that emerges much more quickly than over the natural cycle time.
The most well-known wood chip gardener example is Paul Gautschi in Washington.  Maybe I can help bring some of that attention to Southern Maryland.  I have a plan to combine wood chips, biochar, and gourmet mushrooms in commercial quantities.  Don't hold your breath though, when you are dealing with wood chips, it takes a year or so to get an end product.

Mushrooms Mushrooming

The message from Paul Stamets' book, Mycelium Running, is that mushrooms can help save the world.  They do this, in part, by helping to recycle organic material, often in the form of wood.  That would make the gentleman we met today at the farmers market a real hero.  As the main local supplier of gourmet mushrooms, Mr. Hanners vouches to maintain 10,000 mushroom logs on his farm in central Calvert County.  He has been raising mushrooms for 40 years and seems to have an untiring passion for all things mushroom.  In contrast, I have managed to inoculate 25 or so logs in this, my first year of growing mushrooms.

Chespeake's Bounty is also planning to begin mushrooming on a commercial scale.  At the Mother Earth News Fair last month, the number of people taking an interest in the mushroom growing vendors and lectures was surprisingly large.  Mr. Hanners also told us about the excellent potential of finding morel mushrooms in our area - a quest that I had abandoned.

In addition to logs, I have been growing mushrooms on wood chips and plan to begin growing some oyster mushrooms indoors on spent coffee grounds and next year some Almond Agaricus mushrooms on compost.  Aside from the health benefits of eating various mushrooms, I expect my gardens to benefit from the residue left behind by the extra abundance of mushrooms in our domain.

My Secret Garden

After attempting to grow vegetables in my backyard, which receives less than 4 hours of sun per day, I shifted those efforts to the front, where the sun shines up to 8 hours per day.  I can grow things there, but not as well as those that come from my plot in our community's garden area.  Now, I am going back the other direction.  Rather than concede my remaining undeveloped 0.6 acres to the forest, I'm beginning to turn it into a forest garden.  Ironically, this entails removing a good number of trees for reasons just mentioned.
The thing is, a forest garden is not the type of forest that we find most places.  It is a place where selected plants are allowed to successively develop together, as in a new forest, but does not result in an overstory that shuts out the shrubbery from the sun.  My first tree removal authorization comes with the stipulation that I plant a new tree for every 5 that I cut down.  In my area, that is probably a good ratio to build a forest garden by.  The trees I cut down will either end up as biochar or as hosts to some of my gourmet mushrooms.
My forest garden will be a secret garden since my undeveloped land is mainly in a ravine not visible from the road.  Plants growing on slopes tend to be smaller than those on level ground, so I may be able to get away with planting a larger range of plants, while keeping their sizes down to garden scale.
Since forest gardens are an attempt to restore our surroundings to something approaching the Garden of Eden, I thought I would start with one of the trees reputed to having been there - the fig (contrary to what you may have been led to assume about Eve eating a forbidden apple).  Along with that, we picked up a gooseberry bush from Edible Landscaping on our last swing through Virginia.  They are positioned well to be the premier supplier of forest garden plants in our area as this idea catches on.