Bay bolete mycelium offers the unique chance to start the cultivation of Polish forest mushrooms. If there are spruces or pines growing in your garden, you may expect rich crops of the excellent bay bolete. Ground mycelium on grain available in our store comes from a proven producer that specialises in production of high quality biological and mycorrhizal spawn. You only need to plant it in your garden on a site prepared according to the growing guide in order to harvest delicious, impressive, aromatic bay boletes in the following 3 - 5 years.

Bay bolete (Boletus badius), sometimes called false cep or bay-capped bolete, develops fruit bodies that grow 7 - 15 cm tall. Their cylindrical or squat brown stems turn bluish when touched, just like the undersides of the caps. The caps themselves are semi-circular, dome-shaped at the beginning to turn more pillow-like later. They are creamy-white or olive-yellow underneath and covered with soft, dry bay-brown skin, that gets sticky after the rain. Average diameter of a cap reaches 5 - 15 cm. The flesh of the bay bolete is firm, rather compact and hard (softer in the ripe caps), has an appetizing creamy-white colour and a delicate, mushroom aroma and an excellent taste. We recommend to marinate or steam the smaller fruit bodies whole, while the larger ones may be sliced and added to preserves, sauces soups, or fried.

Exceptionally tasty and popular bay boletes grow in mixed and coniferous forests. They usually emerge from the moss in the neighbourhood of pines and spruces. You should provide them with similar cultivation conditions: we recommend to plant the spawn close to a coniferous tree, no farther than 5 m away. The offered package will allow you to plant three 15-cm-deep holes. Spread the mycelium onto garden soil mixed with peat and cover with a few handfuls of the same soil. Finally, you only need to water the culture (you may use water sugar solution, 10 g of sugar per 10 l of water) and cover it with mulch, preferably moss and needles. You will harvest the first mushrooms early in the summer next year and they will continue to emerge until early autumn.

The package contains ground biological spawn (mycelium) on grain. Detailed growing instructions have been included in the package information. You may plant the mycelium all season long, from mid-April to October. The producer estimates the probability of successful bay bolete development for 85 - 87%. The emergence of mushrooms depends on the environmental conditions and proper site preparation: please remember that bay bolete lives in mycorrhizal symbiosis with coniferous trees. It also needs watering in the longer summer drought periods.