Project Mushroom is a well written, graphically attractive monograph on the culture of fungi by Jodie Bryan and Lorraine Caley, under the auspices of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. Released 7th May 2024 by Quarto on their Frances Lincoln imprint, it's 192 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.
The authors are experts at growing mushrooms on locally sourced substrate. They provide mushroom spawn in kits and dowels to home growers along with FAQ and support to help their customers succeed with growing projects. The book does a good job of showing interested newcomers how to go from wanting to grow mushrooms to actually succeeding and harvesting fungi to use.
The book starts with an introduction and scientifically accurate (but not overwhelming) history of humans and mushroom life cycles. The second, most substantial part of the book contains tutorial projects for indoor and outdoor cultivation and a dizzying array of beautiful mushrooms. The culture tutorials are surprisingly nicely aesthetic, especially the indoor ones, and look more like pampered houseplants than strictly utilitarian culinary items.
Four and a half stars. This is definitely a niche gardening sideline, but would make an excellent choice for public library acquisition, home library, self-sufficiency and smallholding folks, and for gift giving.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes
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