River City Mushrooms

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River City Mushrooms

Cultivating mycological literacy in Treaty 1 - Winnipeg, MB and beyond. Programs, workshops, grow kits, spawn and more 🍄 Join our mailing list 📬

An online repository of educational articles and experiments illustrating how to foraging for and cultivate edible & medicinal plants and fungi. The premise of this knowledge is to outline ways in which we can use both plants and fungi as a conduit for creating ecologically sound and interconnected food generating communities on a local and global level that will remain sustainable and resilient well into the future.

07/05/2024

Pioppino, also known as poplar mushrooms (Cyclocybe aegerita) are coming in hot this week for an inaugural release next week at . They’re my current favourite gourmet mushroom and I’m willing to bet that they’ll steal your heart too!

They’ve got a nice firm texture and chew with tender yet snappy stems. They’re a popular spring mushroom throughout in regions of Italy where this species grows wild. Whether sautéed or marinated, shredded and stewed in a hearty sauce, these mushrooms are a real show stopper.

These hearty (fun)guys’ flavour is mild yet nutty and sweet. I plan to have these available on the regular starting next week! Be sure to stop on by the market to try some It’s a great market in a fantastic neighbourhood that I’m thrilled to be a part of this year 🔥🍄‍🟫👌

06/21/2024

Yet another flush of wild oyster mushrooms (likely Pleurotus ostreatus) from a deceased elm stump here in one of the many tree lined neighbourhoods in Winnipeg. The unique traits and genetics that this particular specimen contains will be plated onto agar and cultured in the lab for further use.

This particular wild strain seems to produce thick, sturdy and durable clusters of light brown or buff coloured mushrooms that should be well suited to handling. It’s also not a bad thing that they seem to be tolerant of producing during warm weather. So let’s see how it does in cultivation!

Working with local phenotypes of wild saprophytic fungi is something that I would love to do much more. This is one of the reasons why I started growing mushrooms in the first place. Growing with local mushrooms species and strains that have already adapted to our local conditions is also an excellent way to cultivate and develop new relationships with our local ecology.

This tissue, taken from the flesh on the inside of a mushroom, will generate more mycelium as it grows. This expanded mycelium can then be used to make grain or sawdust based spawn for the purpose of producing more of the exact same mushrooms under controlled conditions.
If this new strain does well, maybe you’ll see it available soon! Stay tuned to find out ✌️🍄

05/23/2024

Very excited for this next hands on mushroom growing program in collaboration with !

A 1 hour lecture style program will be followed by a 30 minute hands on component where eligible participants will be shown how to correctly assemble their own pail of oyster mushrooms.

Instructions describing how to care for and harvest your mushrooms will be covered during the program and made available after the program through a follow up email.

To register, visit rivercitymushrooms.ca/products or click through the link in our bio. Comment below if you have any questions! 🍄✌️

04/16/2024

Hey everyone! Things have been a little quiet over here on the mushroom front, but just like the natural world outside of our windows, things are just about to make a break for it and I couldn’t be more excited.

After spending the last two weeks travelling out of province to visit family and friends, I am eager to get right back into production mode, continue myceliating and connecting all of you with what you need to get growing mushrooms this spring and summer.

Thank you SO MUCH to all of you who have pre-ordered spawn for the upcoming season! I have a few units of plug spawn left available for pre-order, but once these are gone, that’s it for the year! 10,000 plugs out there in the world.

There are also a few spots left for my mushroom themed weekend series with the Harvest Moon Society on May 4th and 5th. Visit the workshop page on the RCM website, DM or comment below for more details! We’re at about 3/4 capacity right now.

Stay tuned for more updates on the horizon ✌️🍄

03/21/2024

Yesterday afternoon I wrapped up a collaborative project between myself and the biology department at the University of Winnipeg. I am very excited to have had the opportunity to share the skills, methods and insights that I have accumulated over the years with some eager and enthusiastic students over the last couple of months as part of their studies into the world of fungi and mycology.

We explored the life stages of a variety of commonly grown edible and medicinal mushroom species, monitored their growth and development, recognized how to best care for them, solve problems and learned to recognize the nuances of each species and strain.

My hope is that fungi will continue to be a source of inspiration and wonder for all critical thinkers and researchers into the future, and that they will become a much more prominent focus of study in the fields of ecology, biology and natural sciences.

Many thanks go out to Rafael Otfinowski who got in touch with me earlier this year and set this whole project in motion. This sort of tactile and engaging learning experience is something I wish I had more of when I was in school, but the good news is we can change that.

02/20/2024

I am absolutely thrilled to be able to offer this intensive series of mushroom cultivation programs in collaboration with the Harvest Moon Society in Clearwater, MB.

If you are interested in exploring the enormous potential of mushrooms to help diversify your home grown crops, increase the overall productivity of your garden and help contribute to and nurture the health of your soil, this may be your idea of a good weekend.

The interface of mycology, ecology and agriculture is the underlying theme for all of the integrative practices that you will learn in this series of hands on workshops.

I hope you’ll consider joining us. There are 5 courses available which can be attended individually, or as part of a day long or full weekend package. 4 of the latter programs offer a hands on component which also includes take home materials, so you can put your new skills to the test.

This will be a revolutionary, first of its kind fungi-themed weekend program for Manitoba, and not to be missed for those serious about growing mushrooms for pleasure and profit!

01/10/2024

Hey everyone. I Hope the first week and a half or 2024 is off to a good start for you all. A lot of you have been asking about the big reveal that I have been teasing for quite some time now - and so here it goes.

While I was out of province traveling throughout the American southwest in November of last year, time spent in a brand new place with some of my favourite people, I made the decision to leave my full time job of 7 years and concentrate all of my energy on moving forward with River City Mushrooms.

After moving to Winnipeg from Hamilton Ontario in early December of 2016, this was the first and only job that I have held while living here, and so it was very much tied to my self identity, and what it meant to live in Winnipeg. I now find myself somewhat adrift in a churning, turbulent sea of possibility.

The sun has risen to reveal a shifting duality of uncertainty and soft core panic, but also unbridled excitement and an eagerness to embrace the opportunity to cultivate a work and life balance that is conducive to my ongoing struggle to maintain a consistent sense of wellbeing. I’m sure many of you can relate.

This fungi-themed passion project has been ongoing since my early 20’s and has existed in one way, shape or form ever since for the last decade or so. Only back in 2018 did I finally permit this idea to coalesce into what it is today, and make a concerted effort to push myself way outside of my comfort zone and strive to piece together a somewhat functioning business.

I want to sincerely thank you all for being here, and for those of you that have been kind enough and able to support me enough for this transition to even be feasible. I’m very fortunate to have this opportunity. I’m absolutely taking a financial hit, but the alternative, to have maintained my past trajectory, would have been worse for me in the long term.

At the end of the day, I’m just some guy growing mushrooms in his apartment. There’s no investors, upper middle management or employees. There are however, cured squash and paper bags of potatoes that hang out with colonizing bags of grain spawn, bags of sawdust and grain lining the hallways of my home and 30 pound pressure canners that get scrubbed clean in the bathtub.

I’m not trying to revolutionize the industry. If I can inspire something in someone, that’s all I’m here for. The whole point of all of this is to get folks more acquainted with where their food comes from, how it’s produced, empower them to have a hand in doing it themselves, and advocate for a return to small-scale, local and community focused food production. Or something like that.

Stay tuned for more announcements and collaborations that are simmering just under the surface. I can’t wait to tell you all about what’s in store. As we head into a new year, let’s strive to take steps to take care of ourselves, one another and the place that we all share with each other. Cheers friends, to all that the rain promises and more. Spores to the wind 🍻😘

10/29/2023

This nice white oyster mushroom cluster was picked today, just a couple of days after we received our first snowfall of the season. Although this means that most of the plant and fungi outdoors are really starting to hunker down, you can still have mushrooms feeding you all winter long indoors.

Now that you’re here, I want to take this moment to thank everyone that came out to the indoor mushroom cultivation program I delivered last Sunday October 22nd through the community classroom at . If any of you weren’t able to attend, feel free hit me up if you’ve got any questions or need suggestions on how to start 👌

Lastly, thank you (forever and always) to those of you that were able and grabbed a grow kit today. There’s a bunch of varieties still available online, and if anyone wants to make any requests for the upcoming holiday season, I’ll probably start a presale. Should I? Let me know. Tell if that’s something I should do.

Thanks folks. You may now return to your regularly scheduled evening ✌️

05/12/2023

Hey fungi friends,

Big news! For the past few years, I have used my home in West Broadway as the primary pick up location for all River City Mushroom products. However, as demand and production sizes have increased over the last couple of years, this has become less and less feasible for everyone involved.

In light of this, I am very pleased to announce that Refill Market (634 Notre Dame Ave, Winnipeg) and RCM are partnering up to offer you a much more convenient pick up option. Moving forward, after receiving your pick up confirmation, you are to visit the Refill Market shop during their normal operating hours and present the staff with your name and order number(s).

They will then hand over your order on my behalf! More information regarding this change is available through the RCM website, during check out and on your digital receipt - which you will receive after your purchase is complete.

If you have any immediate questions, let me know in the comments below, or feel free to reach out to me directly. 1,000 times thank you to everyone who has supported me over the last 5 years of operation and has helped necessitate this change as interest and demand has grown. Much love!

09/02/2022

Amazing what a couple of cooler nights can do. I made up a few chestnut mushroom (Pholiota adiposa) blocks over the summer without any plan for them whatsoever (as one does) and it seems like they finally decided to make a break for it.

This species is a cold temperature specialist, and the mid to low 20’s are still very much at the higher end of where they would much rather be. Mid to low teens would be perfect.

Chestnuts have a firm, crisp and snappy texture with a rich, nutty flavour. Ideal for stir frying or being gently braised. Caps as well as the full length of the stems can be used. If kept on the drier side, they also have an excellent shelf life.

I’m planning on growing this one on the regular over the winter, as well as enoki, nameko, a variety of oysters, lion’s mane and more pioppino. They take substantially longer to mature than other varieties, but they’re worth it.

As per usual, grow kits will be available periodically throughout the fall and winter for these varieties. Send us a DM if you want to be added to the waiting list: I’ll let ya’ll know first when there will be some grow kits (or fresh mushrooms).

Things got a bit out of control this summer (as is the way it goes), and so I’m a bit behind on getting grow kits out of the door and playing around with growing conditions for some of the other strains I have on the menu for this next phase of the year. Pinky swear.

07/28/2022

Absolutely thrilled to be welcoming a new strain to our regular rotation. Agrocybe aegerita, commonly known as pioppino or poplar mushroom. This saprophytic species grows wild from the stumps and logs of a variety of hardwood trees throughout the southern United States as well as parts of Europe and Asia.

A huge thanks to the folks over at for carrying this robust, advantageous strain that seems to want to just burst with mushrooms despite the current conditions being much, much warmer than what I would have thought to be ideal.

Pioppino seems to enjoy beginning to fruit while still sealed up inside it’s grow bag, often along the edges on the top surface of the substrate. This seems to take place about a week or so after the sawdust substrate has been thoroughly myceliated and has time to consolidate.

Pioppino are firm, deeply savoury mushrooms with a sweet, nutty flavour that holds up well to roasting or sautéing as well as stewing and braising without falling apart and getting lost in the meal. These could easily be their own side dish sautéed in butter or folded into pasta and risotto.

02/21/2022

Two picture perfect lion’s mane (Hericium erinaceus) clusters were harvested from the shroom room yesterday afternoon. each cluster was fairly dense and about 3/4 pounds in weight, which is a decent size for this species and strain.

Hericium have a tendency to produce hefty mushrooms that droop down below where the hole is cut in the bag, so I like to make the incision somewhere near the top so that the mushrooms don’t end up growing into the surface below the bag.

A healthy lion’s mane fruiting body will be nearly solid when sliced all the way through and is ready to harvest when the ‘spines’ produced all over the surface of the mature mushroom noticeably begin to elongate.

Lion’s mane are reliable, consistent producers that often do not have any trouble producing a second, third or even fourth flush immediately following the previous harvest so long as conditions are kept humid along with plenty of air circulation.

02/19/2022

Very pleased to welcome back king blue oysters to my regular at home growing rotation. This strain will never let you down and is consistently one of my favourites. A stunning mushroom to see grow out and equally pleasing to plate up and enjoy.

Many thanks to Lenny Rockwell (Mycelium Emporium) for carrying this culture and for developing the strain. May just resurrect my own wild cloned ‘Wolseley’ brown oyster sometime soon as well.. so stay tuned for that.

Also wanted to give a shout out to all of you who purchased a grow kit from me during the sale I had at the beginning of this month. Thank you! If you have been following this account for a little while you already know that I cannot say that enough.

1 3/4 lbs. was harvested this morning and there will be another cluster from a 2nd block of around the same size getting picking tomorrow morning. Hit me up if anyone wants fresh mushrooms in time for Sunday brunch tomorrow.

12/28/2021

Hey everyone. I’ve been pretty quiet over here on the internet lately, but today I thought I should drop in to give ya’ll a little short snd sweet update.

Firstly, I put together a small fruiting chamber a couple of months ago that I have had fun tinkering with. I already have plans to revise the layout of the humidification / fresh air intake systems and make the current set up easier to take a part and clean.

Just picked this nice cluster of BPKO (black pearl king oysters) earlier this afternoon. I hope all of you who were so kind as to grab one of these grow kits from me over the last couple months have been enjoying some good harvests.

Now onto business: I’ll have some more BPKO and lion’s mane grow kits available sometime shortly into the new year. Same as earlier this month: I’ll send an e-mail out to the subscriber list (link in bio) as well as make a post here announcing when I’ll be updating the online store.

That’s it for now. These last couple weeks have been.. a lot, and I’m sure you’re feeling it too. So I hope you’re managing just fine and finding enough moments of joy and peace to keep you going.

10/20/2021

Finally getting around to putting the finishing touches on my small indoor grow tent this week. The tent will mostly be used to test experiments but also for producing some extra mushrooms for you and for me.

The tricky part is gradually dialling in the fresh air exchange and humidity systems so that the mushrooms have what they need to do their best. This is where I am at right now.

By the look of these pearl oyster mushrooms, I would say we are almost there. Oysters are notoriously sensitive to high CO2 levels, with long stems and small, inverted caps indicating low O2 levels.

The stems on these are a still a bit too long for my liking, but the caps are filling out nicely. This photo was taken about 12 hours before harvest, so the caps did expand a bit more than this.

Honestly though, some of the best looking mushrooms I have ever grown were achieved by placing them near an open window and misting with a spray bottle 3-4 times a day. But I would like to grow more than just one at a time.

09/02/2021

Hey friends! I’ve currently got blue oyster and elm oyster available as grow kits and bags of grain spawn. Limited quantities of each, especially the grain spawn of both varieties. DM to claim yours! I’ll update this post when and if I sell out, just like the post from last week.

Thanks in advance everyone for being so open, friendly and really, really cool. More stock will be available closer to the end of the month.. hopefully with some shiitake and lion’s mane available in addition to more oysters and maybe something brand spanking new 😉🤞🍄

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75 Young Street
Winnipeg, MB
R3C1Y7

Website

http://www.rivercitymushrooms.ca/

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Videos

Pioppino mushrooms are a very easy species to grow indoors. They like cool conditions and can flourish with even small amounts of air exchange, but high humidity is a must. The mushrooms have a thin ring that will separate from the gills once the mushrooms are mature. All of the mushrooms on a block tend to mature within a day or so of one another, so all of the clusters should be harvested at the same time. Once the ring separates and reveals the mushrooms gills under the cap, they are ready to pick! Sometimes the mushrooms can grow into each other, so this can be a bit of a delicate process so as to end up with nice, in tact clusters.

Just a few updates from me this morning! Please join me and the rest of the Winnipeg gardening community at Seedy Saturday this coming weekend! 10:30-3:30 @ Millennium Library. Free admission! Local vendors, a film screening, workshops, seed swap and more! Also! Be sure to get your plug / dowel spawn orders in before March 23rd! I have a limited quantity available and need to know by then how much I am making in order to ensure that I can have them all ready for planting time from mid April through to early May. Sawdust and grain spawn preorders for the spring planting season / start of the gardening season should also be in by April 13th! This will allow me enough time to produce them and have them ready by the end of April or early May.

A little mushroom grow room show and tell for you today! I’ve got a single bag of black pearl king oyster mushrooms that are looking fantastic at the moment, as well as loads of pioppino mushrooms that will be ready to pick early tomorrow! Join the fresh mushroom newsletter (sign up on the RCM home page!) if you would like to snag some of these for a recipe later this week or over the weekend! Black pearl king, pioppino (lots!) and a small amount of blue oyster will be available.

Pioppino also known as black poplar or poplar mushrooms (Agrocybe / Cyclocybe aegerita) are a versatile and delicious mushroom that is very quickly becoming one of my personal favourites. They often begin producing mushrooms on their own about 2-3 weeks after the inoculation date, and require less fresh air exchange than oyster or lions mane mushrooms. They are also relatively unknown on the culinary and home growing mushroom scene, which is unfortunate because they are very easy to grow indoors, love cooler weather and produce like clockwork. Yields are not normally as impressive as oyster or lions mane mushrooms, but they make up for that in ease of use and are a mushroom that you simply can’t find anywhere else!

In today’s video I am doing a bit of a recap of my previous video on how to properly and effectively harvest your fresh mushrooms. Today it is a nice beautiful cluster of lions mane that is ready to be picked. Similar to oyster mushroom varieties and other clump forming fungi, you will want to find where the base of the cluster meets the substrate, grasp it firmly and wiggle it back and forth (up and down) until it breaks free, making sure to be support the cluster so it does not fall!

Oyster mushrooms go through different stages of development as they grow. Size, color (and even fragrance!) can be used to judge when your mushrooms are ready to pick. Temperature and exposure to light tend to be the strongest influences of color, especially when it comes to species like this blue oyster, which tend to be most vibrant when they are young. Generally, blue oyster mushrooms should be picked when their color starts to fade from blue to grey, the caps of the mushrooms begin to widen or the margins of the caps splay out (they begin slightly rolled in or curled under). Spore production is a sure sign of maturity, and those mushrooms should be picked right away if you notice spores!

A quick little tutorial illustrating how to know when your mushroom grow kit is ready to start using. Ideally 10-14 days after the inoculation date is typically when the mycelium will have matured within the substrate, but be sure to look all around (including the bottom) of the bag to ensure there are no large patches of bare sawdust substrate. Even coverage of mycelium is what you are looking for, and there are some subtle difference between species and varieties. It is a learning curve, but you will get it once you see the same species or variety grow out and mature a few times! Thanks everyone for your continued interest and support 🍄✌️