No, not shellfish, oyster mushrooms! The most amazing and intriguing new additions to my household are the fruiting bodies of oyster mushrooms that are growing out of two impregnated toilet rolls on the window sill….. I got the spawn (mycelium mixed with grain) from Ann Miller’s Speciality Mushrooms of Inverurie, together with instructions. You soak a whole toilet roll and put it in a plastic bag; break up the spawn and put it into the middle of the roll. Seal up the bag. Then I had them in the airing cupboard for 4 weeks, the fridge for 5 days, and then the window sill (relatively cool) for the past week. At this point you make wee holes in the bag. And Lo! exquisite little oyster mushrooms gather up behind the holes and burst through. I should say the entire toilet roll at this stage is a mass of fungal mycelium – it is eerie and fantastical to watch it develop and form embryo mushrooms almost before your eyes.

Blooming well beats anything on television. And edible too!

You can get the spawn if you email ann@annforfungi.co.uk Loo rolls – the recycled ones from Lidl seem to work! The fungi break down the cellulose in the paper. As edible mushrooms seem thin on the ground just now in the wild, I am well impressed!