Hey there and welcome back to the Beginners Garden podcast. Have you ever wondered if you could grow

mushrooms in your home garden? Right alongside your tomatoes, I hadn't either until recently.

Mushrooms have always seemed like this mysterious thing that I never really had the desire to learn about,

but now that I've actually started to grow them, I see that they're not nearly

as complex as I thought. Today's episode, though, is a little unique. What you'll hear is a

conversation that I had with Matt McKinnis from North Spore Mushrooms a few months before I

planted the mushrooms he sent me to try. As you'll hear, like you possibly,

am coming at this as a pure beginner who really knew very little, and I wanted him to walk me

through it all. We talked about easy ways to grow mushrooms in our garden beds, mulch, and even

our garden paths. We talked about how mushrooms can actually

improve your soil and help your plants, what kind of moisture and sunlight they really need and

don't need, and then how to cook, preserve, and actually enjoy the mushrooms that you grow,

especially if you've never loved them before raising my hand here.

And I waited to share this episode with you until after I had actually planted my mushroom spawn

and had something to report back to you. So after our conversation, I'll return back to you

with my initial thoughts as a first time mushroom grower.

I was definitely surprised with what I found.

Whether you're brand new to mushrooms or you're just mushroom curious,

you'll discover that integrating them into your existing garden might be simpler

and more beneficial than you think. Let's dive into my conversation with Matt

McInnis of North Spore mushrooms. Matt, growing mushrooms as a vegetable gardener, what do I need to know

about growing mushrooms that's different from growing vegetables? Sure. I mean, I was a vegetable

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