The Milwaukee Mushroom Growers group was birthed the night of October 25th with it's first big event: a hands-on oyster mushroom growing demo turned extravaganza! Held at the Bayview Ecovillage, an intentional community of individuals sharing living/gardening space, meals, kayaks, compost and friendship, the demo started with twenty participants and slowly grew into a packed house of 70 consisting of an equal representation of the organizations from which the Grower's Group was spawned, the Wisconsin Mycological Society, Victory Garden Initiative, and Transition Milwaukee. With everyone settled in, we discussed starting cultures from spawn and mushroom butts, proper fungi fruiting conditions, the sordid world of mushroom sex, and the not-so-fun of indoor fungi (imagine a closetful of tiny flies and a condition known as spore lung). Spent coffee grounds were innoculated with spawn & everyone went home

With a sample that they could propagate into their own oyster garden. Mark Gill, Victory Garden Initiative board member, passed a bucket to raise over $100 to plant fruit and nut trees in Milwaukee to provide a sustainable, local food-source for inner city folks with limited access to fresh food (part of the Fruitty Nutty Event, see more on Victory Garden Initiative's website, thevictorygardeninitiative.com). Plans also started to resolve for a Milwaukee Mushroom Growers Group spring shiitake log-drilling and oyster totem-building party thanks to WMS members like Steve Shapson (yeah, Steve!) offering to lend their expertise, tools & resources. Despite the risks, e.g. converting the supporting beams in your home into oyster mushroom food, enthusiasm for fungal cultivation was maintained and future oyster demos, a trouble-shooting session, movie/discussion nights (anyone want to talk about how to make wine using mushroom enzymes?) are all in the works!

Thanks to everybody that made it out! If you'd like to have another oyster demo, want to host a demo of your own (say tempeh-making, Peter?) let us know! Call/e-mail Tina Samuels, tinasams100@hotmail.com 414-403-9087. Stay tuned to WMS newsletters for more on upcoming events!