Best Way to Reduce Mushroom Growth

LESLIE: Alright. Next up, we’ve got Ladonna in Colorado who’s got a gardening question about how to reduce mushroom growth. Welcome to The Money Pit.

LADONNA: Yeah, I have a sod issue. I laid some brand-new sod in my backyard and I’m watering several times a day to keep it so it catches and stuff but I have lots and lots of mushrooms. I’m picking mushrooms in the morning, picking mushrooms at night and they’re not even edible. I have dogs, cats and grandkids who are on the yard, so I don’t want to use anything, you know, that would be bad for them. So I need something organic to get rid of mushrooms. Any ideas?

TOM: Great question. Now, if you don’t want to use a commercially-available fungicide – because that’s what will reduce mushroom growth – you can also sort of make your own by mixing baking soda and water. If you put about a ¼-cup of baking soda per gallon of water and spray that whenever you see the new mushroom growth, that will help to deter it.

And the other thing that you could do to reduce mushroom growth is add lime, because mushrooms love acidic soil and lime can make that soil less acidic so that the mushrooms will tend to not grow. So there’s two ways to help limit or reduce the amount of mushroom growth on your lawn without turning to chemicals.

LADONNA: OK, great. Well, I will go ahead and try that.

TOM: Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.