Growing mushrooms at home might just become your new favorite hobby! Mushrooms are delicious, but they are also good for you, for your soil and your plants!

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I am so fired up to write about mushrooms this week. Why? Let me tell you!
Grow Your Own Mushrooms in your garden
These past 3 weeks I’ve been finding mushrooms all over my food forest and vegetable garden. Huge edible ones that taste really good. They are popping up all over and every day that I go in the garden I can find a few. Sometimes a few pounds. However, they are not growing there by chance.
My journey with growing mushrooms and why you should too!

So the reason these mushrooms are growing in my garden is because I planted mushroom seed, called spawn earlier this year. Back at the end of May, I ordered a bag of sawdust that was inoculated with mushroom spawn. Then I went into my wood chip covered food forest garden and mixed some of that sawdust with the wood chips in different places. Mostly behind trees, leafy plants and other partially shady areas.
This particular mushroom species that I planted, are winecap mushrooms, also known as king stropharia or garden giant. I love eating mushrooms, but am reluctant to buy them in the store. For one, they are super expensive. And most of the time they look past their prime and often you can’t even store them in the refrigerator, because they’ve already been stored for too long. So that requires planning to go shopping right before cooking a mushroom meal.
I’ve always been super intrigued by hunting mushrooms, but I’m a bit chicken when it comes to eating them. There are so many deadly or toxic species and usually when I find any that look good, and I go to look them up in a book or online, they are either toxic or have look-alikes that are. So I don’t eat them.
There are very few that I would trust myself to identify positively and without a doubt. Such as morels, chanterelles, oyster mushrooms, lion’s mane and chicken of the woods. I just don’t often ever find them. Once I found one over-ripe morel in my pig pen 6 years ago, and one lonely one in the middle of my gravel root cellar stairs, go figure how that ended up there! And while I was looking everywhere, I could not find another one around. Oysters seem a little more common, and I feel good about identifying some medicinal mushrooms, that aren’t the eating kind too, such as the artist conk or other genoderma, birch polypore, or turkeytail. But that’s where my confidence ends.
Enter the homegrown mushroom operation.

Growing winecap mushrooms at home is really not hard, in fact, I think its easier than growing vegetables. And the reward is great. My first time growing mushrooms was in Washington 4 years ago. Back at the beginning of November in 2020, I bought the first bag of winecap mushroom spawn for spreading in my freshly planted garlic bed that I had covered with straw. As soon as the mushroom spawn arrived, I mixed it into that straw. Then came the long wait.

If you’d like to grow your own winecap mushrooms, I recommend the following sources, which I have used in the past: Winecap mushroom spawn from Northspore in Maine, or Winecap mushroom spawn from Cascadia mushrooms in Bellingham, WA. I am not an affiliate of either, but I had great success with both products.
What to do while you wait
I had also ordered a couple of indoor mushroom growing kits, one a lion’s mane kit and the other was an oyster mushroom kit, which were promised to produce mushrooms within a few weeks, which made waiting for my wine caps a little easier.

And I had also ordered some mushroom plugs for planting in logs. That gave me more mushroom activities to do during the time of wait. Here are a few: Blue Oyster Mushrooms, Shiitake (this one comes with sealing wax and drill bit!), and Lion’s Mane.
These did not turn out for me at the time, which I attribute to a long hot summer, where I didn’t think to water the logs. I’m thinking they may have dried up. I will try again though and have my new plugs on order. It is too much fun and super exciting. I’m also ordering some chicken of the woods plugs. I’ll post more in the future on the progress. Stay tuned and subscribe to my newsletter to find out how it went!

I also went into the woods and searched for medicinal mushrooms. Mid to late fall, before a hard frost is a great time to harvest them. I found artist conk, turkey tails and birch polypore for drying, making tea, and making tinctures. And unfortunately I didn’t get pictures.
As you can see, I dove head long into the mushroom growing adventure. Not all of that was successful yet, but the wine caps and mushroom kits were a hit without fail!
Emergence of Winecaps
Winecap mushrooms will usually take about 3-5 months before they start fruiting, although it can happen sooner when conditions are right. In my experience it has been at least 5 months each time. I usually plant patches of it all over, not just a concentration in a small bed. That could be the reason. The season has to be right for them as well.

After my first planting in November of 2020, I started getting mushrooms at the end of May the following year. So that took about 7 months. Which is no surprise with the long winter in-between. The winecaps like some warm sunny days to rear their heads and greet the open air and they like the ground warming up to about 55 degrees before they fruit. When I first saw them in my garlic patch, it was like love at first sight and bite, after cooking them a little later. Btw, I had my best garlic year that year too!


This is why they are also called “garden giants”. They can get huge!
Inspired by this success, I got another bag of spawn that same spring and spread it around my little wood chip mulched food forest in another area of my NW Washington garden. That one brought forth about 25 pounds of mushrooms from one thirty dollar bag of spawn about 5 months later in fall. I ate lots of them and put the rest in the freezer, enough for many meals all throughout winter. These plantings had more flushes the next year too. Not as huge, but several pounds again.

I’ve learned a bit since about growing these mushrooms and will include my tips a little later in this post.
Fast forward to growing Winecaps in Missouri
This year was my third planting of spawn. I wasn’t sure what to expect here in Missouri. It’s been humid all summer, but not a ton of rain and I’m in a very windy spot up on a hill. I wasn’t sure if the mushrooms would like it as much as they did in moist, rainy northwest Washington, where most of my flushes happened right after a few days of rain followed by a warmish day.

Well, they sure decided to fruit even during a long dry spell here. First in my garden and later in my food forest, on a warm day after a few nights of frost. And they are still going. I don’t expect as big a harvest here as in Washinton, but at the time of this writing, I’ve already harvested about 9 pounds of mushrooms and that doesn’t include several pounds that I had missed in the beginning. There were quite a few big ones that were hiding in some tall grass, before I realized that they had started to fruit.
Reasons to grow your own mushrooms

There are many reasons for growing mushrooms in your garden. Certainly not just because they taste so good, but hey, that would be good enough reason too!
Nutrition:
Winecaps are high in nutrients such as proteins, fiber, vitamins, and minerals such as calcium, iron, potassium, vitamin D, and B-complex. And they are low in calories. Mushrooms are also high in copper, selenium and zinc, which are so important for our health.
If you are a vegetarian, adding mushrooms to your diet can greatly help with some of those nutrients that are mostly found in meat and that vegetables lack in general, such as iron.
Health benefits:
All edible mushrooms have some health benefits that range from supporting brain health to warding off cancer. Winecaps are no exception:
- Immune system support: Winecaps contain beta-glucans that can stimulate the production of white blood cells to offer a better immune response.
- Antioxidants: They are high in antioxidants, which can reduce cell damage caused by free radicals. They also have antibacterial properties.
- Hearth health: These mushrooms contain potassium, which can reduce the risk of heart disease and help lower blood pressure.
- Mental health: Winecaps contain compounds that support cognitive functions and can possibly help prevent neurodegenerative diseases.
- Anti Tumor: They have also been found to contain anti-tumor substances and are indicated for helping with liver cancer and leukemia.
Environmental benefits:
When we want to see nature at work all we need to do is go into the forest and observe and learn. One of the major components in a forest are mushrooms or fungi. They are the decomposers, recyclers, partners of the plant world, nutrient miners, and they form pathways for microbes to travel on. They build soil and help with water infiltration and are essential for a functioning natural forest. If we model our gardens to nature’s example, mushrooms will play a vital role.
Mushrooms are great for your garden, especially your perennial garden. They form mycelium, and do a lot of work even before they give us the benefit of their fruit, the above ground mushrooms. Here is why mushroom mycelium is so important:
- It can supply your trees and plants with nutrients in a symbiotic relationship. Some mycelium can spread for miles underground and retrieve nutrients and even water if they are lacking in your garden.
- They digest the woodchips and break them down which releases nutrients for the garden.
- Mycelium activity will leave the soil healthier and improve soil structure.
- Mycelium can break down and remove toxins in your soil.
- The mushroom fungal threads can form a tight network, clumping soil together and helping with erosion as they are forming a better soil structure for water infiltration.
- Mycelium is a communication network. Sort of an underground internet web. Plants supply the mushrooms with nutrients such as sugars and, in turn, the mushrooms, with their vast network of threads, can locate what the plants need to grow at their best. They don’t talk to each other in voice of course, but through chemical exudates and plants can communicate their needs that way. This is the common method of communication in the plant world and the mushroom world, and they work closely together. Introducing mushrooms to your garden can facilitate this important symbiotic relationship.
- Mushrooms can cleanse underground water sources from toxins and contaminants.
- If you grow mushrooms, your need for tilling and soil disturbance will diminish, since the mushrooms will do a lot of the work that causes people to want to till. In fact, it is best to leave your soil undisturbed, so the busy microbial workers and fungal hyphae can do their best work to benefit your soil and plants. If we don’t disturb their underground network, they can continue to work efficiently.
- Mushrooms can also help control nematodes in the soil.
- Mushrooms create a rich layer of humus and organic matter by decomposing your wood chips. If you keep adding a layer of wood chips on top each year, you’re providing a reason for your mushrooms to continue to stick around, breaking down this new layer and so you can potentially find them fruiting for your dinners for many years to come, all while building rich, nutritious soil.
- Mushrooms can be propagated once they are established. After a fruiting, take a little of the inoculated mulch and “plant” it in another area of your garden, to establish a patch there.
They are tasty!
Last but not least and one of the main reasons that I’m growing these awesome mushrooms is because I love the taste and texture of winecap mushrooms. These mushrooms are non-toxic even if ingested raw, but mushrooms should always be cooked! And they shine even in a most basic sauté. But they also enhance stews and are delicious in my Hearty Mushroom Chowder. They make awesome mushroom gravy, and they are so good in a risotto!
How to grow winecap mushrooms
Out of all the mushrooms that I’ve grown, or tried to grow, and I’ll write more about those in the future, the winecap is the easiest to grow. It is easy to add to an existing garden and especially a food forest. They can also be grown in a large pot on your balcony if you’re vigilant about keeping it moist and providing some shade. It probably won’t hurt to partially cover the pot with a piece of wood or cardboard or so at least until the spawn has populated the substrate.
Winecaps love to grow in straw or wood chips. Hardwood chips, that is, such as from oak, poplar, maple, beech, birch and other decidous trees. It’s ok to have a some pine chips mixed in though, I did in Washington and they grew beautifully there, but it should be mostly (75%) hardwood chips. Find out how to find or make wood chips in my post How To Make Mulch From Wood Chips.
Growing mushrooms in straw

Winecaps also love to grow in straw or a mix of wood chips and straw. That is why I planted them in early November in my straw mulched garlic bed. For much of the country that is a good time in which to plant garlic and winecaps as well, for a flush of mushrooms come spring, after the garlic starts to grow and provides some shade. The mushrooms will emerge when the soil warms to about 55-65 degrees.
Be sure to look for them if you planted them. One day you’ll be out there and find huge open mushroom umbrellas where there was no sign of them earlier. You’ll learn to be more aware of how to spot them after a while. But initially, you might have to train your brain on looking.
From what I hear, if you have less substrate for them, they will produce fruit sooner, but they will also “burn out” quicker. After populating the substrate with mycelium, they will begin fruiting if conditions are right.
Growing winecaps in a regular flower pot? A new experiment
You can try growing some in a pot. I am trying that this year, but I’m not sure if my pot is large enough for these vigorous mushrooms. We’ll see.
This is what I did: I filled a pot with some rich soil and compost, then added a thin layer of hardwood chips and oak sawdust, then placed the bottoms of the harvested mushrooms (01-03) into the pot and added a bit of inoculated wood chips that they grew in (04). (05) shows all that on top of the wood chip layer. I also added torn pieces of a paper bag. They like that too. Then I covered with another 2 inches of wood chips and oak sawdust. And hopefully I’ll remember to keep this moist. I folded up a scrap of a paper bag and covered all that to keep the moisture in and to keep it darkish. I’ll let you know if I get any results.

Preparing your garden for growing winecaps
If you’re planning to grow them in the garden and you’re making a special bed for them, place a thin layer of wood chips or straw on your garden bed. One bag of spawn can inoculate an area of 16 square feet. Now sprinkle the mycelium on top and and cover with another couple of inches of straw or woodchips.
Water it all well and keep it moist but don’t over-water. It’s best to plant it where there will be some shade when these mushrooms start to fruit. Planting them in my garlic bed was perfect! But you can plant the spawn on the north side of perennial plants, like asparagus, comfrey, or cardoon. Or, if you have garden features, such as raised beds, a fountain, or rocks, plant them on the shady side of these so the mushrooms will get some partial sun and some shade. They like some sun, but dappled.
Growing winecaps in your existing wood chip garden
If you have an existing wood chip mulched garden path or a food forest, just bury a bit of spawn here and there, in the shade of fruit trees or shrubs or behind some large leafy plants like comfrey. Mine seemed to love popping up under the edges of my comfrey plants, partly under the cover of their leaves. If your wood chips are mostly decomposed already, then add a layer of fresh ones to cover your winecap spawn.

When the winecap mushroom spawn arrived, I opened the bag and took it to the food forest. I moved away some wood chips on the north side of plants such as the cardoon and comfrey and trees. That created an indent in which I planted the spawn. Then I covered it with a couple of inches of wood chips. From there the mycelium populated the area around the planting as you can see below.

I checked after a couple of weeks if there was any activity and sure enough, it was getting ‘webby’ under the top layer. I was pleased to see that, but I was worried that they weren’t getting enough moisture later in the season. However, the beds became overgrown with squash plants and sweet potatoes, and that provided some shade and kept the area from drying out too much.
Keep your planting area slightly moist down at the soil level. It’s ok if the top of the wood chips dries a bit, but you’ll want to maintain moisture a few inches below.
Be aware too, that the mycelium can travel quit a bit and you might find some mushrooms several feet away from where you planted them. Just something to watch for.
Now just wait and find the happy surprise one day when you take your rounds in the garden and you’ll find your first winecap mushrooms poking out of the ground. After that, keep an eye out for more each day for weeks. You might soon have mushrooms growing out your ears!!
What to do with your harvest:

When you pick mushrooms, you can just pull the whole mushroom out of the ground. It won’t hurt the mushroom plant. The mushroom plant is underground and will not mind if you pick its fruit and ‘accidentally’ spread its spores and spawn all over the place. It’s actually the intent to have some critter (or human) facilitate with reproduction. I like to put my mushrooms in a basket for that reason, so the spawn will have a chance to spread while I walk around collecting more.

Most often I cut the mushroom stem just at ground level to keep it cleaner and I either leave the bottom in the ground or I take it and “plant” it elsewhere with the hope to create fresh mushroom patches for later.

I always take my time when picking, to clean each mushroom before i place it in the basket. My favorite tool, which was a present from my daughter, is the Opinel #8 mushroom knife with brush. It’s perfect for the job, and I try to always have it on me when I go mushrooming. Cleaning your mushrooms on-site will keep your basket and all the other mushrooms clean, so you don’t have to wash them later.
It’s not a big deal if you want to wash them, but I find they get slimy and soggy when wet, and they fry up nicer and handle easier when they are dry. Washing can also transfer dirty bits into the gills, where they would be hard to get out. So I brush off all the dirt, skirt off small dirty stem areas with the knife, and only wash them when they truly need it.
Tip: If you do wash your mushrooms, save the wash water, which will contain spores now, and mix it with some sea salt, then spread it in a leaf pile, straw or on wood chip paths. This can start new patches of mushrooms in your garden.

Now I take my harvest into the “kitchen” (which currently is my outdoor folding table next to my grill, which functions as my cook top and oven). Maybe I’ll have a kitchen again some day, that would be nice, lol, especially when the wind blows like mad, or when it rains, or in winter. But for now, that is where I prepare my mushrooms and where I will finish cleaning them and chopping them up for cooking, drying or freezing.

If I don’t have a lot of mushrooms on any one day, I place them in a paper bag and put that in the top of the refrigerator where it’s not too cold. Then I do the same each day till I have enough to make it worth cooking them. They will keep for up to a week that way, although they won’t be at their prime after several days. I always use them or process them within 3-4 days.
Steps to cook winecap mushrooms:

To cook them, just cut them into chunks or thin slices, whichever you prefer. Use all of it, stems and caps. These are ready for the frying pan.

Place a chunk of butter into a frying pan and melt it. Let it get slightly brown. If you don’t add onions, just put the mushrooms into the butter at this point and brown them a bit, then turn and keep going until they get limp. Add a bit of pepper and salt. Cover, turn down the heat and simmer for about 15 minutes. Now they can go into the freezer or into your meal.
Here is my preferred way to cook and season them:

Chop up a large onion and brown the onion a bit before adding the mushrooms.
Then toss in your mushroom pieces and let them brown a bit. Stir them with a spatula and continue to saute them at a medium-high temperature.
Once they are getting limp, add a few cloves of chopped and smashed garlic. Cook for another minute, add some salt and pepper and cover the pan.
Turn the heat down, and let it all simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes to cook the mushrooms thoroughly.
Now you can eat them or freeze them.
I can’t wait till you taste them. Do let me know what you think in the comments below. They are so scrumptiously delicious and if you don’t get hooked on mushrooms by growing these winecaps, I’d be surprised! It’s grandiose fun!
How to Preserve mushrooms:
This is something you probably rarely encounter if you don’t grow your own or forage. That you’ll have too many mushrooms! But I have so many during a time where they put out fruit, that I need to preserve the abundance.
Canning
Here is the dirt about canning homegrown or foraged mushrooms (warning this is rebel canning, which is any canning that has not been approved or tested by the big guys):
I have looked into canning these mushrooms but have not actually canned any yet. The advice is against doing so. However, I don’t see why they couldn’t be canned just like button mushrooms, which is an “approved” recipe. I am thinking it is because not a lot of people are canning foraged or wild mushrooms. I still plan to try it someday and I don’t see how it’s any different than canning button mushrooms. So if I ever have too many mushrooms and not enough freezer space, I will definitely try it. But you’ll have to use your own judgment when considering to do it for yourself. It’s never worth risking lives for any reason, I just don’t see the risk here. Let me know how you feel about it in the comments.
Here is what I like to do. I freeze them:
It’s really simple to freeze the mushrooms. They need to be cooked. So you can choose from a few methods:
- You can simmer them in a bit of salted water, for about 15 minutes or until they are done. Now you can use a skimmer to take the mushrooms out and save the broth separately or you can pour mushrooms and broth into freezer containers and freeze them together. It depends on how you want to use them later.
- Steam the mushrooms: Put the mushrooms into a steamer basket and add water to your pot. Bring the water to a boil and place the steamer basket above it. Close the lid and steam for about 20 minutes. Let it cool and put the mushrooms into a baggie or a freezer container and freeze. Save the broth too, it will have a nice mushroom flavor and is great for cooking a rice pilaf or use to make a soup broth or gravy.
- Now my favorite method: I’ve used them all in the past, but I feel that the mushroom flavor is brought out best and preserved best by using the method for cooking that I described earlier: Pan frying with butter, salt and pepper. Add onions and/or garlic or not. You can also add some red wine and simmer it down. Reduce any liquids down and place the cooled mushrooms with the bit of liquid into your freezer container and freeze. Now you can top a dish with it and it tastes a whole lot better than just blanched mushrooms.

Drying the mushrooms:
I like to dry some of the mushrooms, when I have my woodstove going. But this year it’s been too warm out for heating with wood. So I don’t feel good about drying mushrooms without that extra dry heat in my yurt. I don’t have a dehydrator and my oven takes too much electricity to run for long periods of time. But at your home, you can probably do that with no problems, so here is how:
- Slice the mushroom caps thinly. Use the stems in your next soup or freeze them, they get really hard when dried and don’t reconstitute so well. But the caps dry easily and soften easily when you’re ready to use them.
- Lay the cap slices in a single layer on your drying racks, and place them near a wood stove or other dry-air heater. Alternatively dry them at 140 degrees in your oven, or a dehydrator. Check on them after a few hours and flip them if necessary.
- When they are very dry, place them in a canning jar and seal it well. They’ll keep for a year. I like to vacuum seal mine for the long term. For this you can get vacuum sealing tops that attach to a food-saver machine and can be used to create a vacuum in regular and wide mouth canning jars. If you don’t have a food-saver, you can use those same attachments and take the air out with a brake bleeder kit. I use one that I got from harbor freight and it works just fine, but if you don’t have harbor freight nearby, I’ve included this amazon link. Hopefully it works as well. Vaccuum sealing makes a huge difference for keeping your non-oily dried foods and herbs fresh for the long term. Here is a pump and seal kit that my friend uses and highly recommends and I like it a lot. I’m planning to get that for myself hopefully soon, it works really well.
How to make mushrooms continue to flush
The winecaps will flush when conditions are right. Mostly there will be a concentrated window in spring and fall where you’ll see most of the fruiting. Occasionally you can find a few throughout summer. They will flush heavily the first year. After that they will have smaller flushes as long as they have substrate to break down. To keep getting healthy flushes of mushrooms year after year, keep adding an inch or two of fresh hardwood wood chips each year. Wine Caps can produce fruit for many years in the same location this way. You can also remove some inoculated material from an area that produced mushrooms, and relocate it to another area in order to start a new mushroom bed there.
A few notes of Caution:
- Whenever you try new foods, always test that they are compatible with you and that you don’t have an allergic reaction. Fry up a few bits of the mushrooms and eat them, then wait 24 hours to see if you have any adverse reactions. If not, go ahead and have them for dinner.
- Paul Stamets, the famous fungus master, has a video where he cooks up Winecaps. I don’t remember what it’s called, but in it he mentions that after eating them for 3 days in a row its best to take a break, because they become harder to digest. I have not checked into that more deeply, and I eat them for weeks at a time. I do not feel that it affects me in any bad way. But just be warned, in case you feel sick or bloated after eating them for several days in a row.
- Here is the standard caution for mushrooms in general. Make sure you identify any mushrooms positively before eating them. Even if you plant mushrooms in your garden, there are plenty of others that might make their home in the same area where you planted your winecaps. So know what your winecaps look like, and make certain that it is truly a winecap mushroom that you’re cooking up for dinner and not some other mushroom that happens to grow in that same spot where you planted the winecaps. There is a great video by one of my favorite mushroom teachers on youtube, Adam Heritan of Learn Your Land, on identifying Winecaps in the wild. But it applies to your backyard too.
- Mushrooms grow hyphens underground and work on decomposing the wood or straw that they are planted in, however, they can travel underground and pop up in some unexpected places, not at all where you planted them. So when you’re mushroom hunting, be aware that they could be several feet away from your initial planting spot, especially if you planted them in a food forest that is mulched with wood chips.
- If you have kids, this would be a great way to introduce them to mushrooms and to teach some lessons about identification and how they grow. Always tell your kids, never to eat any mushrooms unless they bring them to you first so you confirm that they are good to eat and cook them.
In summary, here is a winecap growing recap

I hope that I could convince you to try growing your own mushrooms. It’s so rewarding and so much fun. I am so hooked on growing my own mushrooms and hope you catch the bug too. I’ve been growing them for years now, and I’m always stoked to find these awesome garden giants popping up their beautiful wine-red caps and it’s always a treat to fry some up in a pan with butter, onions, and garlic and have them for dinner. Yummmm!
Be sure to sign up for Food For Life Garden News to get notification about all the new content I’ll be posting. Never miss a post!
And let me know in the comments below what mushrooms you are growing at home!
Common Questions
What kind of mushrooms can I grow in my garden?
Winecaps, I think, are the easiest to grow in your garden and a great way to get started growing your own mushrooms. I have tried to grow oysters in my garden, but they came as grain spawn, and I think the rodents ate all that grain before the mushrooms had a chance to start growing. I found lots of rodent activity in that area and never got any mushrooms. But I do plan to try again, this time in buckets. Northspore mushroom company also recommends blewit, almond agaricus, and nameko mushrooms for growing in gardens. I have not tried these, but have them on my future growing mushrooms list.
Do mushrooms grow back every year?
They will continue to grow if they have “food”. If you want to keep producing mushrooms, you’ll have to add more wood chips each year so the mushrooms can have new material to decompose. It is not a guarantee that they’ll keep showing up, but there is a good chance for it. You can also take some of the mycelium and transplant it into new areas of your garden, and if conditions are right, they will populate that area and produce fruiting bodies for you to eat.
How do I know what the mushrooms that I planted look like?
Be sure to know how to identify the mushrooms you planted. In the case of wine caps, there are lots of pictures you can find that show how they look.
They usually have a wine colored, reddish brown thick cap with a white edge, but I’ve also found plenty off more light brown colored ones. They have purplish-grey gills that can be almost white to fairly dark as the mushrooms grow older. The spore prints are almost black. The gills are attached to the stem but don’t travel down the stem. The stems are thick and white and have a crown, or annulus, where the veil was attached. The stems are very slightly bulbuous at the very bottom, where it has mycelium strands attached when you pull them out of the ground. They do not have a vulva.
There is a great video by one of my favorite mushroom teachers on youtube on identifying Winecaps in the wild. Check it out!
Where can I learn more about identifying mushrooms
Here are a few of my favorite mushroom identification books:
All That the Rain Promises and More: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms by David Arora. This is a great condensed book for beginning and advanced mushroom hunters. It is easy to use and can easily fit in your day pack.
National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms (National Audubon Society Field Guides). Another great guide that you can take along on your hunt
Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora. This one is a bit of a tome. It’s probably not your favorite to take on a hike, big and heavy as it is, but it makes for a great fireside read when you want to dive into mushrooming a bit deeper.
More gardening information
How to make mulch from wood chips for your garden Read about the many ways that wood chips can help you with your garden and your food forest.
25 Essential Herbs To Plant – Start your home apothecary garden with these 25 powerful allies for your health. Learn their benefits, how to grow them and where to source them.
How to Grow Celery From Seed To Harvest – All about the celery. If you want to grow it for bulbs, stalks, leaves or seeds. This post has you covered.
Plant a Tree Guild, Grow A Food Forest – How to grow a food forest starting from scratch with a tree guild. Grow a lively ecosystem for your trees!
How to grow onions from seed – Learn all about growing onions from seed to harvest and how to prepare them for long term storage. Plus how to choose the right varieties!
How To Get Bigger Garlic – What to do to get big and healthy garlic bulbs. When and how to plant and harvest.
Bigger Onion Bulbs With The Right Variety – A guide to selecting the right onion varieties for your region and needs and a dive into other alliums you can grow from seed.
How to prepare my soil to plant fruit trees How to prepare your planting hole, what to put in it and how to give your tree the best odds for growing up strong and healthy.
22 different types of compost There is surely a way you can compost. Either in your backyard or in your kitchen. Composting fits all sizes and situations.
How to make 18-day compost The best compost for your garden beds in less than 3 weeks.
Another Winecap Mushroom Recipe:
Hearty Mushroom Chowder – A delicious, rich and flavorful chowder that can easily be adapted to any ingredients you have in your pantry!

Sautéed Winecap Mushrooms, A Simple Recipe
Equipment
- Frying Pan, preferably cast iron with lid
- Spatula
Ingredients
- 1 pound winecap mushrooms
- 1 large onion
- 2-3 cloves garlic
- 2 tbsp butter
- Sea salt Try Redmond's Real Salt, Himalayan pink salt, or Celtic sea salt
- Pepper
Optional
- 1/2 cup red wine
- 1/2 bunch fresh parsley, chopped
Instructions
- Chop the mushrooms into the desired size. Chunks or slivers.
- Chop the onion into small pieces.
- Finely chop the garlic and mash with the back of your knife.
- Heat the pan on medium high and add the butter, let it heat to brown just slightly
- Add the onions and let them brown. Saute for a few minutes.
- Add the Mushrooms and saute for a few minutes.
- Add the garlic and saute for one minute.
- Add some salt and pepper to taste.
- You can add a little red wine at this point if you like. Once it simmers, turn the heat down and put a lid on the pan. Let it simmer on med-low for about 15 minutes.
- Take the lid off the pan and continue to saute till almost all the liquid has cooked away.
- You can now serve it, sprinkled with some fresh parsley.
Notes
Ideas for using your sautéed mushrooms:
There are so many ways to use this recipe.- It’s great just as is, as a side for your meal.
- Or top some plain rice with it.
- Serve it with baked potatoes.
- On top of your grilled meats.
- Make a gravy by adding a little flour and some milk at the end of cooking.
- Top an omelett with these sautéed mushrooms.
- Mix with scrambled eggs.
- Add some chicken strips or other meat strips when you first add the mushrooms and serve with potatoes or rice as a main dish.
- Top a burger with this.
- Top a Philly style steak sandwich.
- Sprinkle on a pizza.
- Use it to make a mushroom stuffing.
- This list could go on and on. Do let me know your favorite way to use this dish!
How to preserve these mushrooms:
If you have a lot of mushrooms, you can cook them the same way and freeze it in portions. Then just defrost and use as described above. I like to put some in my winter chowders or stews too!Pin This Recipe For Later

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Disclaimer: The material on this site is intended to be for general informational use and is not intended to constitute medical advice, medical diagnosis, or medical treatment. It constitutes my personal opinions and my own conclusions from research. You should consult your physician or other health care professional before making any changes in your diet or exercise regimen.
Sources for some of the information:
Web MD
SC Fungi
Savvy Gardening
So much great information! You make growing mushrooms at home more accessible and I appreciate that.
Hey Jenni, thank you! And thanks so much for stopping by!