Adding mushrooms to your food forest will bump up the biodiversity like nothing else! They are a sure sign of a healthy garden and play a vital role in cycling nutrients back into the soil. Mushrooms feed themselves by digesting organic matter and, in turn, enrich your garden—making them the perfect addition to any food forest.

In this blog post, we’ll look at two simple ways to grow your own mushrooms at home: shiitake mushroom logs and wine cap mushrooms.

Growing Mushrooms on Logs

One of the easiest and most rewarding ways to grow mushrooms is by inoculating logs. In my experience, shiitake mushrooms are both the easiest to manage, and the most delicious tasting. But depending on your region, you can also grow oyster, lion’s mane, and chicken of the woods on logs.

Why Logs Work So Well

Mushrooms thrive in humid, cool, and shady environments—which makes a food forest the ideal setting. With plenty of hidden, moist areas beneath the canopy, mushroom logs almost manage themselves once established.

What You’ll Need

To get started, you’ll need:

🌳 Fresh logs from hardwood trees (oak is a favorite)

🍄 Mushroom plugs (mycelium) from a reputable supplier

🔨 A drill and hammer to insert plugs

🕯 Wax to seal the holes

The process is simple: drill holes into the log, tap in the plugs, and seal them with wax. Place your logs outdoors in a shady area and let nature do the rest! With the right conditions, you’ll usually see mushrooms begin to appear within 9–12 months.

Tip: Harvest your mushrooms quickly once they appear—forest creatures love them as much as you do!

And the best part? A well-prepared log can keep producing mushrooms for many years with very little effort!

 

Growing Wine Cap Mushrooms

If you want something even easier, give wine cap mushrooms (Stropharia rugoso-annulata) a try. These beauties are often called “The Garden Giant”—and once you grow them, you’ll see why! They can reach massive sizes, though in my opinion, they taste better when harvested small.

The Perfect Habitat

Unlike log-grown mushrooms, wine caps thrive in wood chip beds. Their natural habitat is the forest floor, so a layer of hardwood chips (oak works beautifully) mimics their preferred food source.

This bed above only gets a light burst of EARLY MORNING sun! This is what it looks like after the leaves fall, before the winter comes. It's very protected.

Here’s what makes them so simple:

• Create a shaded bed with moistened hardwood chips or straw.
  
• Mix in your mushroom spawn evenly.
  
• Keep the bed damp (not soggy) and let it rest.
  

Over time, you can refresh the bed by simply adding more wood chips, which keeps your mushroom patch producing year after year.

What to Expect

Wine caps typically take anywhere from 2 to 11 months to appear, depending on your climate and care. Like log mushrooms, they pop up quickly once ready—so check often before the critters beat you to them!

In my food forest, I keep a wine cap bed tucked behind the shed where it stays shaded and naturally mulched by fallen leaves over winter. With hardly any effort, I get an incredible harvest every season.

And yes, they really do live up to their nickname—the mushrooms can grow to jaw-dropping sizes! Check out this wine cap mushroom below—I GREW THAT!

Final Thoughts

Whether you’re stacking logs in a shady nook or tucking wood chips into a corner of your food forest, growing mushrooms at home is simple, low-maintenance, and endlessly rewarding. Not only do they boost biodiversity and enrich your soil, but they also give you a fresh, gourmet harvest right from your backyard.

If you’re new to mushroom growing, start small with shiitake logs or a wine cap bed, and watch how quickly these fungi transform your food forest into a thriving, living ecosystem.

Check out my Edible and Herbal Food Forest Guide where I go over this topic in greater detail, with my favorite mycelium supplier suggestions, and the SHORTCUT to having a FOOD FOREST in your very own back yard!

Always remember:

The Future Is Worth The Patience Of The Present

-Michele

The Homemade Gardener