Add Wine Cap Substrate to your garden this growing season to encourage soil biodiversity. Wine Cap Substrate comes in 12 lb substrate bags. Each 12 lb substrate bag will inoculate 100 sq ft. Wine Cap mushrooms (Stropharia rugosoannulata), also called Garden Giants or King Stropharia, are a vigorous mushroom that grows naturally on outdoor beds of woody debris. These mushrooms are hearty and soil-enriching, making them popular among gardeners for being beneficial to garden ecosystems. Wine Cap mushrooms thrive on hardwood chips or straw (not hay). Utilizing a mix of both materials can help to create varied particle sizes in your garden beds which helps to enhance moisture retention and provide a varied diet to the fungi. Wine Cap mushrooms can tolerate some direct sun but do best in partial shade. Partial shade locations will reduce watering needs and support a higher mushroom yield. Ideal growing locations are at the edge of a field, woods, around the base of trees, in perennial garden and as part of mulch in vegetable gardens. Once Wine Cap mushrooms are established they require little maintenance, needing to be watered during dry periods but not over-watered. Avoid planting in dry or isolated areas, they do not thrive in hoop houses or areas without regular irrigation. When inoculating your Wine Cap mushrooms: determine your location, remove any leaves and debris, spread your woody material over the soil. Water the woody material. Break up the Wine Cap bags and evenly sprinkle the spawn on top of the woody material. Add a second layer of woody debris. Water the woody material. Note: Use freshly cut hardwood chips (aged up to 6 months) to out compete unwanted fungi. It is best to use oak, maple, ash and poplar wood chips. Avoid woody material from black walnut, limit pine, osage and cedar. Pros and cons of wood chips vs straw: wood chips will provide a longer-lasting bed with slower fruiting but more sustained fruiting. Straw will decompose faster which produces mushrooms sooner but does require replenishing sooner.