Mushrooms in my compost

[landimad]

I had delivered a quantity of compost from the local corporation, only now a year down the road it has decided to sprout a large amount of different mushrooms and toadstools.
Is there any way of getting rid of said fungi or is it a case of dig it out and start a fresh with good soil?
We had five tons delivered, so I could be on with a big dig over the summer.

[landimad]

[Unwashed]

I wouldn't have thought it was anything to worry about. 

[landimad]

I do I do as they are overrunning my carrots and cabbages.

[lincsyokel2]

They wont make a blind bit of difference to the compost, just dig them in. The compost must have picked the spores up after composting and during storage.

[landimad]

Here are some photos of the offending fungi.
I am not sure as to what type they are and whether the are safe in the garden!
Any info on these will help.

[lincsyokel2]

Here are some photos of the offending fungi.
I am not sure as to what type they are and whether the are safe in the garden!
Any info on these will help.

unless you're going to try eating them, i really dont think its a problem, just hoe them in......

[GlentoranMark]

I've tried several times to grow mushrooms from a kit and failed every time and you get the beggars without asking  :P

[Robert_Brenchley]

They're living on decaying matter in the compost. They'll do no harm, help it all to rot down, and disappear when it has.

[gaz2000]

avoid eating them  ;D ;D

[landimad]

I only like the ones from the fields, GREAT big ones, my dad called them horseshoe mushrooms. Big as a dinner plate. :P

[Robert_Brenchley]

I like those, horse mushrooms I call them. I can get them in the market, but the family all object and insist on having tasteless little button mushrooms, if they'll eat them at all.

[landimad]

Fungi are fun guys to eat however you want. :P
I enjoy them and to hell with those in the house that do not. ;D
TASTY is what I say ;)

[queenbee]

Hi Landimad,

It's me again Queenbee, I too have noticed mushrooms or toadstools in my (very well known brand) compost.
I have also found bits of laminated flooring, old canes, leather, in fact when I opened a new bag I found that a little piece of twig had rooted. God knows what it was. What is happening (according to the nice gentleman at our local tip) is that when you take your garden rubbish to the tip it goes into compost also the contents of our brown bins goes into compost. Peat is no more. When I think of the diseased plant stuff and pest infected plants I have put in my bin not to mention a bit of flooring that we had left. I do hope they sterilize the stuff.

Best wishes
Queenbee.

[lincsyokel2]

Hi Landimad,

It's me again Queenbee, I too have noticed mushrooms or toadstools in my (very well known brand) compost.
I have also found bits of laminated flooring, old canes, leather, in fact when I opened a new bag I found that a little piece of twig had rooted. God knows what it was. What is happening (according to the nice gentleman at our local tip) is that when you take your garden rubbish to the tip it goes into compost also the contents of our brown bins goes into compost. Peat is no more. When I think of the diseased plant stuff and pest infected plants I have put in my bin not to mention a bit of flooring that we had left. I do hope they sterilize the stuff.

Best wishes
Queenbee.

Well 'peat is no more' isnt exactly true. Theres a government target for Compost makers t oreduce the use of peat in compost by 40% within 5 years.

On top of that, they keep declaing peat bogs SSSI's, so the compost harvesters have to contunually move onto new peat bogs. In actual fact there a lot of BS by the green lobby about peat, only 2% of all the peat bogs in the country are harvested.

The search for a peat substitute has gone on for years. Various substitutes ahve been tried, including shredded carpet, cardboard, and green waste. Green waste was the best so far, but it still had massive    shortcomings, one being its almost impossible to mechanically pick out  broken glass and non ferrous metal from green waste, and far to inefficient and expensive to to it by hand. How do you fancy pushing your hand into a   bag of compost and cutting it on a shard of glass?

The best bet currently is a stuff called Fytocell, its a cold process foam made with Urea, has fantastic properties for growing in when granulated, and biodegrades to water and CO2 so is carbon neutral. Expect Retail composts with 40% fytocell to appear in the next two years.

As for the stuff made at the rubbish tip, its far too inconsistent and variable to be of use, you practically have to do an EC and NPK analysis on each bag to find out what its like. The only thing its really any good for is digging into the plot as a soil conditioner. The fact it still has uncomposted live material in in shows it isnt composted for long enough, and its the composting process that kills the nasties in it. They certainly wouldn't waste money sterilising it any other way. (In fact sterilising growing medium like Top Soil is immensely expensive and use huge amounts of energy).

[landimad]

Queenbee,

I have to agree with Lincsyokel2 as to the information that person has written. Also the piles of green waste is kept for up to twelve months before being released to the companies or general public so as the composting has had chance to do its work.
They do move the piles on a daily basis and turn all of it to ensure there is a good mix.
With regard to the pest and diseases, the heat alone should kill off most of these when processing the conditioner.
They are not allowed to sell this product as compost but as stated a soil conditioner to be mixed with other products available on the market to get the best results.

[queenbee]

Hi Landimad and Lincsyokel2,

When I said compost, they were actually growbags which I buy to fill my tubs etc. I really do not agree with you regarding the complicated process that you say they go through. My compost heaps are thoroughly broken down in twelve months and I do not get mushrooms or sprouting twigs in them. Lincsyokel2 you say that peat is still OK as only 2% is harvested in England. The compast last year from a well known DIY place did not say that it was only a soil improver. We grow tomatoes and we have noticed that as we water from the bottom and feed from the top, the water  is not being taken up by the pots. We have grown tomatoes this way for 20 years and never had this problem before. We always buy quality growbags and this year was no exception. I look forward to your comments.
Regards Queenbee.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I think I'd want to look a bit closer at the 2% figure, and also a bit further afield. Even if not much is being harvested in England, which has very few large peatbogs, and is waking up a bit to the value of the stuff in situ, that doesn't raise the question of what's happening to, say, Irish peat bogs.

The only time I've get a lot of fungi appearing on the plot (I mean a lot!) was after I spread a lot of autumn leaves. Brown matter tends to decompose by fungal decay, and that's what produces most of them.

[landimad]

I am wondering how much is pulled out of these to accommodate the gardener around the world.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es0200387

People must realise that the bog has been there for a long long time and  we have not.