King Stropharia

Common Names: King Stropharia, Wine Cap, Garden Giant

Easy to grow, easy to identify and super tasty to eat (like potatoes cooked in a light wine), King Stropharia is one of the top choices for beginners wanting to grow mushrooms outside. This saprophytic mushroom is a great addition to your garden as it is great at breaking down woody debris and organic matter releasing nutrients back into the soil. This makes it a great companion to many plants including corn, potatoes, squash and zucchini but also a welcomed addition to disturbed areas like garden pathways.

• Culinary mushroom
• Mushroom must be cooked prior to consuming

• Hardwood forests, in soils with un-decomposed woody matter, woody debris

• Outdoors: Easy

• Sawdust spawn

Outdoors:

• Fruits well in disturbed soil rich in broken sticks or un-composted woody matter
• Hardwood mulch but we were told some strains have been trained on conifer wood mulch

Outdoors:

• Agricultural fields plowed with inoculated straw
• Wood mulch can be used in:
  • Wood chip pathways
  • Around fruit trees
  • Vegetables beds

Outdoors:

• From 3 to 6 months depending on inoculation rate and site temperature
• In an established bed, will typically fruit more than once a year often in the late spring and fall

• Older mushrooms can often have fly or beetle larvae, so harvest when the cap begins to open and separates from the stem
• Harvest by twisting the mushroom at the base
• Short shelf life relatively short so best to cook and eat within a few days after harvest but can be stored:
  • Open Caps: refrigerated at 3-6C for up to 1 week
  • Buttons: refrigerated at 3-6C for up to 2 weeks
  • Dried and Rehydrate
• Good yields with larger flushes in wood chip beds, than when straw mulch is used