(rhythmic music) >>When commercial mushroom growers are ready to plant mushrooms, they need to create a substrate.

And typically, those substrates are only used for one round of mushroom growth.

And then, what you're left with is a really rich organic material that can then be reused and resold as mushroom compost.

It might be locally produced or it could come from a little further away, much bigger operation.

Those operations actually steam sterilize the compost before you get it.

That gets rid of any pathogens and any active weed seeds.

And the mushroom compost looks just like a very nice rich soil.

You can get this in bags, or sometimes you can get it at much larger quantity, like a scoop for your pickup truck at some garden centers.

And depending on how much you need, the trick is there's some mushroom compost do have a lot of soluble salts.

And if there's too much salt in the soil, that will be detrimental to your plants.

So, what I've done when I've used mushroom compost is to mix it in thoroughly with the soil I already have.

So, I am not going to have a high amount of the mushroom compared to the soil.

I'm gonna have at least a one-to-one kind of mixture.

So, here, I just want to transplant some of my native plants.

The soil that I have right here is incredibly poor.

It has almost no organic material.

It's pretty dense clay.

And so, I just want to try to break up that soil a little bit with the mushroom compost.

And then, what I'm gonna do is just kind of check to see if I'm at the right level.

I need a little bit more.

That's not quite tall enough.

So, I'll just kind of keep mixing (soil clatters) and just trying to make sure that I'm giving the plant a nice substrate to grow in.

(soil clatters) Extra organic material should help with the root growth and over time, withholding water, which in drought seasons is very important.

(leaves rustling) So, there we are at the right level, and now I'm just gonna dump in a bunch more of my soil with another handful or two of my mushroom compost, and I'm gonna finish up by filling this in fully.

I'm going to water really heavily because we are very dry right now.

And then, I have some arborist chips that I'm gonna totally mulch this with to make sure the plant is happy, and hopefully then we'll get some rain to water it in.

So, mushroom compost is a great addition for your soil to add organic material.

Just be very cautious if you're concerned about the soluble salts.

You can always do a soil test if you're getting it in by the scoop load and check to see how it looks.

Happy gardening.