I'm trying to promote wine cap growth, and am unsure if I should leave a black tarp on it, or take off the black tarp.
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required soil temperature is above 50deg F – Bamboo Aug 01 '18 at 21:07
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and below what temp? will it survive a MN winter when established? – black thumb Aug 02 '18 at 04:11
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No idea - its usual to inoculate around May and crop in fall, but whether the mycelium survive in your winters I've no clue. Not even sure what MN means but I think you live somewhere with very cold winters. the info about soil temp being above 50 deg F is all I could find. – Bamboo Aug 02 '18 at 11:12
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Wine Caps like plenty of airflow for the spawn run phase. Rather than covering them with a tarp I would suggest you cover them with straw.
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2https://gardening.stackexchange.com/help/be-nice, specifically the parts about belittling people and vulgarity. – Niall C. Aug 01 '18 at 21:22
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2Ok, so plain text. Cut out the sarcasm. If you have a problem with the be nice policy, take it to Meta Stack Exchange. Don’t forget that every SE site is different and this one is one of the “nice and soft” ones. And I was merely pointing out that you were skirting close to violating the be nice policy. I did look at the complete post history before commenting, btw., including the post edit. – Stephie Aug 01 '18 at 22:46
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will the mycelium grow towards the fresh air as it's on the bottom of about 1' of woodchips on top of a pile of hay? – black thumb Aug 02 '18 at 04:15
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@black thumb Where did you place the spawn, on top of the wood-chips I am assuming? The mushrooms will establish themselves within the chips (their source of food) and grow against gravity from there; so you should have no problems. I am assuming they have no natural source of shade since you wanted to use a tarp? Keep the hay you place on top of the bed light s/t the sunlight can still get through to some degree; we don't want to choke them. Another option would be to get a few stakes and attach the tarp to the stakes raised above the bed by an inch or so. – Rob Aug 02 '18 at 14:18
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The inoculated cardboard is right above the 4' tall grass that has about 1' of wood chips on it to smash it down after the tarp killed it off enough. – black thumb Aug 02 '18 at 14:56
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@black thumb Is it possible for you to take a picture of your setup and post it? – Rob Aug 02 '18 at 15:04
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1@black thumb Ah, I see. Okay so you have 1' of wood chips then a layer of cardboard which I am assuming is actually multiple layers? Did you lay some cardboard down then some spawn then some cardboard, spawn, cardboard etc? That should be fine. I dont want you to worry to much. Toss the tarp over the cardboard that should be fine. It is unlikely that the bed will get to hot for the mushrooms to thrive. Just be sure not to steak it to the ground or anything like that. We want them to sweat but not be drenched so we need a bit of air. – Rob Aug 03 '18 at 15:26
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@1 layer of cardboard, then 1' of wood chips on top. the tree trimmers are being so generous that whenever I sign up for chip drop they bring 1 load of wood chips. Side note: I'm cutting some firewood right now, so when I'm done with that I'll be able to spread about 1 load every other day, but my wine caps will be starting at 1 side, and spreading, so the bed will be expanding (bucket spread) as I get mushroom butts to blend up, and pour on the garden in a distribution manner. – black thumb Aug 04 '18 at 04:45
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@Rob I have plenty of water as it's about 10-30 feet from the creek, then cooking with the breaking down of wood chips with the cardboard on top of the 4' tall grass, and I built a nice branch barrier around the edges to keep animals from wandering into it from the grass. – black thumb Aug 04 '18 at 04:49
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@Rob will wine cap survive being buried under 3' of wood chips telling them "you got buried, start growing to the surface"? – black thumb Aug 31 '18 at 02:01