Mushrooms 101 is perfect for anyone wanting to learn about and try their hand at growing mushrooms from logs. This workshop includes the materials and instruction to guide you step-by-step through the process and to walk away with the skills and confidence to care for your log at home!

Growing healthy food is usually associated with a garden plot, but this isn't always a reality for everyone. What if we said you could grow top value, natural food from tree off-cuts, using just the space you have, and no soil required?!

Join us at Kelmarna Gardens for a crash course in growing mushrooms with Ellen Schindler! Learn how easy it is to grow your own oyster mushrooms, with minimal investment and a scrumptious high value return! In this skills-focused, hands-on workshop, you will get to work through each step of the process - from preparing your log, inoculating it, and caring for it after you take it home at the end of the day!

There will also be general learning about mushroom cultivation, which mushrooms you can grow more easily, what kinds of timber is best to use and where to find it, what it means to 'colonise' a log, and how best to pass the time as you look forward to your first flush of 'shrooms!!

Tickets include: the logs, plenty of inoculated oyster mushroom dowels, organic beeswax for sealing your work, and the basic tools to get the job done!

What to bring: a water bottle, a lunch or snack, weather appropriate gear

If at all possible, participants are also asked and encouraged to please bring:

• power drill (preferably corded, or cordless 18V + spare battery pack)
• drill bits size 8, 9, and 10
• old paintbrush with organic bristles (NO plastic or synthetic bristles, they will melt in the beeswax!!)
• tape measure + marking tool (marker or pencil)

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Ellen Schindler is a passionate gardener and community organiser. Since 2006 she has nurtured her home garden in Sandringham into a productive food system with up to 55 fruit trees of all types and sizes, beehives, chooks, and vegetable patches.

She is a committed volunteer who has helped to establish the Homestead and the Dignan Street Community gardens in Pt Chevalier and has been involved in planting and maintaining fruit trees in parks and grass berms across Sandringham.

Ellen believes that healthy food should be accessible to everyone, and it is her dream to shift our perspective of public green-spaces to unlock their productive potential by managing fruit and nut tress in every council park and berm in the city!

Over the past few years, Ellen has indulged her interest in cultivating mushrooms on logs, creating opportunities for valuable food production in the otherwise overlooked dark, damp spaces in her garden. In this workshop, Ellen is looking forward to sharing with you her homegrown mushroom experience and encouraging you to join her in exploring the cultivation of this fascinating fungus!

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At Kelmarna, we strive to make education accessible for everyone, so we offer a 50% discount on our workshops to Community Services Card holders. If you book one of these tickets, please email us a copy of your valid Community Services Card and remember to bring it along to the workshop. Ngā mihi.