How to Cultivate Mushrooms

Lowell Dietz will demonstrate how to cultivate edible mushrooms at noon Thursday, Aug. 24, in the county commissioners meeting room at the Clallam County Courthouse, 223 E. Fourth St., Port Angeles.

Gardeners can learn how to make mushroom growing kits using pasteurized straw and grain spawn. Emphasis will be on mushrooms that grow on the Olympic Peninsula without climate control. Dietz also will demonstrate “low-tech” mushroom expansion using newspapers and will discuss organic growing mediums. He will make suggestions for using oyster mushrooms in main dishes and as an appetizer.

Dietz grows shiitake and oyster mushroom varieties and sells growing kits at his mushroom farm in Sequim. He has been foraging for wild mushrooms for 30 years and cultivating since the late 1990s. He is a member of the North American Mycological Association and lifetime member of the Kitsap Peninsula Mycological Society.

Dietz has been a speaker at the Jefferson and Clallam County Master Gardeners Foundation lecture series and the Pacific Northwest Mushroom Festival including the its recent festival in July of this year.

This free presentation is part of the Green Thumb Garden Tip education series sponsored by the Clallam County Master Gardeners. For questions, call 565-2679.