Back in 2019, a few weeks before Wuhan became the centre of many people’s attention, Helsieni took part in a competition organised at Slush…
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“Support your locals”
This is what we could read everywhere last year on T-shirts, Facebook profiles or even grafitis. A few months later, it seems our former life has taken over this message. Our locally-made DIY mushroom kits have rarely sold as little as this Christmas season. Local farmers markets (REKO) are quieter than before the pandemia. The […]
Visit to Polar Shiitake
In March of 2019 Helsieni traveled to Rääkkylä, in Eastern Finland, to meet one of the biggest Shiitake producers of Finland: Polar Shiitake. The CEO, Markku Leppänen, showed us around his business which has been growing shiitake mushrooms since 1985. The process starts with grinding the raw material, in this case alder trees, to fine […]
The best mulch ever: Spent Mushroom Substrate
Spent mushroom substrate (SMS) is waste every mushroom farm produces. It is fully colonized substrate, in our case a mix of coffee grounds and oat husks, that has given from 2-4 flushes of mushrooms and is no longer economically viable to keep in the fruiting room. After every harvest the substrate that has given their […]
The Future Role of Mushrooms
Global food production is under increasing stress, from rising fossil fuel costs, to climate change that alters weather patterns and increasing occurence of extreme events. Perennial plants are plants that do not need to be planted every year, they are trees or shrubs that, once established, are very resistant to changes in weather fluctuations, diseases or […]
Myco Hacklab Finland in Finnish national news
The Myco Hacklab Finland mushroom meetups have attracted interest from the national news (YLE). We are happy to see so many interested people in cultivating edible mushrooms! There are many ways to start, for example with a Helsieni Growkit, to grow your own oyster mushrooms on coffee waste. You can even choose pink and yellow […]
Myco Meetups: Every 2nd Friday of the month
The Myco Hacklab Finland is getting organised! We will now host Myco Meetups every second Friday of the month. Myco Meetup #6 will be on 8.9 from 18:00 onwards, at Helsieni Headquarters. Sometimes we also have a workshop before the meetup, for instance cloning or low-tech agar preparation methods. If you have ideas about workshops or would like to host one, […]
New Species: Pink & Elm Oyster
We have two new species on offer: Pink Oyster (Pleurotus djamor) You can cultivate this mushroom in a (self-made) growkit on coffee waste but also on for example straw pellets. The taste is more spicy than the grey oyster and the texture is firm. Elm Oyster (Hypsizygus ulmarius) The Elm Oyster is not part of […]
Grow Mushrooms in your Garden
Last week we went to Lohja to visit Eric Puro and his new outdoor mushroom farm called Gifts from Metsä. This spring he has been inoculating over 1000 logs with different strains of Shiitake, Oyster, Nameko, Elm Oyster and Reishi. Eric has been farming Shiitake in Kentucky (USA) for many years and now he is […]
Myco Meetup #1 great success!
There was a great turnout of the Myco Hacklab Helsinki’s Myco Meetups at our Helsieni Headquarters last Friday 10.3.2017! The diversity of people was large and it was wonderful to sense the high level of curiosity and knowledge that was present in the room. The topics that were discussed are: fungal dyes, medicinal mushrooms, we started growing mushrooms on old […]