Courses

Join Will Borowski for two jam-packed days of hands-on skills in edible mushroom propagation. Learn how to grow delicious oyster, shiitake and many other mushrooms at home, organically!

This practical workshop will take you through the details of home mushroom propagation and introduce you to the fascinating world of fungi. You'll also receive a host of take-home mushroom resources to get you growing.

Will Borowski's approach is designed to ensure a sustainable mushroom supply. Will uses minimal intervention with his mushroom propagation and focuses on creating resilient strains of mycelium which can better handle natural environments, rather than the climate-controlled approach of conventional large-scale mushroom propagation.

By the end of this course you will have the skills to take any suitable store-bought or foraged mushroom, clone and propagate it in a variety of ways, and create a lifetime supply of free mushrooms with very little startup cost.

This workshop covers:

• The basics of how mycelium works in nature
• An overview of the fungi of Australia
• 'Cloning' store-bought mushrooms to make your own mycelium
• Making agar to grow spawn, ready to be transferred to substrate
• Making grain and sawdust spawn for cultivating mushrooms in bags
• Inoculating logs with spawn in order to grow shiitake mushrooms
• How to create mushroom gardens in your backyard

Growing your own organic mushrooms is a great way to introduce important trace minerals to your family's diet, as well as being a heap of fun and extremely interesting to do.

Growing organic mushrooms can lead to a successful micro-enterprise that fits well with many small farms, homesteads and urban growers. Once you know how to do it, there is very little ongoing cost.

About your teacher:

Will Borowski's family name means 'forest mushroom gatherer' in Polish. Need we say more. Will has been working with fungi and mushrooms for many years throughout Australia and has an extensive understanding of native and edible fungi.

Will also sees mushroom awareness as an important educational tool for teaching kids and adults alike about the crucial role that fungi plays in our soils and ecosystems, and about how home mushroom propagation can benefit a family's nutrition and the home environment. Will runs the Forest Fungi website.

So if you're curious about how to start growing mushrooms in bags, logs or in the ground and how to propagate your own strains of mycelium for a lifetime supply, join us!