"Start with an easy species that's going to give you a yield in a short period of time, so that you get that satisfaction and that confidence." That's Rene Lestan's most important piece of advice for people looking to grow their own mushrooms. The owner of Red Island Mushroom Hunter held the first of four mushroom cultivation classes on April 12 at the Beaconsfield Carriage House in Charlottetown, with more than 40 people in attendance.
The mushroom hunter told SaltWire after her presentation that she was excited to see the public interest in the event, with the class selling out days ahead of the class and extra walk-ins joining the day of. "It fills an energy inside you to teach people about something that you love," Lestan said.
Lestan regularly hosts foraging walks and mushroom cultivation workshops, educating people about safe foraging and growing practices for edible mushrooms. Nadia Prigoda-Lee has been gardening in Charlottetown for six years, and after hearing about Lestan's class thought mushrooms would be a great addition. "I'm just looking for new things to add into it, and mushrooms seemed like a really cool thing to do," Prigoda-Lee told SaltWire after the class had ended. The class featured several slides of information about mushrooms, as well as hands-on education on how to grow king Stropharia or wine cap mushrooms.
"Mushrooms are basically the immune system of the forests because they excrete antibiotics and enzymes and such," Lestan said to attendees. While focusing mainly on wine caps, Lestan also talked about other types of mushrooms, as well as some ways to differentiate them in the wild.
Read the entire article at Saltwire