Turkey Tail is Trametes versicolor, a UK native bracket fungus that grows on dead hardwood. Our Turkey Tail log kit gives you 30 inoculated spawn plugs, beeswax and instructions. You supply a freshly cut hardwood log. It colonises over 12 to 18 months, then fruits for three to five years. The harvest is dried for teas, not fried in a pan.

Turkey Tail has just joined our outdoor mushroom log growing kits range, alongside White Oyster, Shiitake, Lion's Mane, Tarragon Oyster, Golden Enoki and Summer Oyster. Choose Turkey Tail (UK Native) from the variety dropdown on that page.

What is Turkey Tail?

Turkey Tail is a bracket fungus, so it grows sideways out of wood rather than up from the ground on a stalk. The brackets form in overlapping tiers, thin, flexible and shaped like a small fan. The name comes from the banding: rings of contrasting colour parallel to the outer edge, in browns, greys, blues, rusts and creams, with a pale rim at the growing margin.

Trametes is the genus, a group of tough bracket fungi. Versicolor means "of various colours", a fair description of that banding. Older books call it Coriolus versicolor.

It is one of the commonest wood decay fungi in Britain. Walk a broadleaf wood in autumn and you will find it on fallen oak, beech stumps and cut log ends. It lives on dead wood and breaks it down, which is the job you are giving it.

How do you recognise it?

Three things confirm it. Shape first: thin, flexible brackets in tiers, often in large overlapping colonies, bending rather than snapping when fresh. Banding second: distinct concentric zones of colour, and a cap that feels velvety under a thumb.

The underside third, and this is the one that settles it. Turkey Tail has a whitish to cream pore surface, a fine layer of tiny holes, dense enough to look like suede until you get close. No gills, ever.

What is false turkey tail and how does it differ?

False turkey tail is a Stereum species. From above the two look alike: thin brackets, concentric bands, same size and habit. Underneath they are not confusable. False turkey tail has a smooth underside with no pores, often buff or tan. Turkey Tail has pores. Trust that test.

Why do people grow Turkey Tail, and what do they do with it?

Turkey Tail is not a cooking mushroom. It is tough and leathery even when young and never softens in a pan the way an oyster or a shiitake does.

What people do is dry it and simmer it. The harvest is cut into strips, dried hard, then used a few pieces at a time in a long simmered tea or decoction, strained and drunk warm. Some blend that liquid into broths and stocks. The flavour is mild, woody and slightly bitter. Turkey Tail has a long history of traditional use, particularly in East Asia, where it has been prepared this way for centuries. We are growers, not health advisers, so that is as far as we take it.

The other reason people grow it is that it is a handsome thing to have in a garden. Unlike a flush of oysters, the brackets sit there and keep looking good for months.

What is in the kit, and what do you supply?

Thirty inoculated wooden spawn plugs, beeswax to seal the holes and the cut ends of the log, and full instructions written for someone who has never done it before.

You supply four things. A freshly cut hardwood log. A drill. An 8mm bit. Something to melt the wax in, with a brush to apply it.

Keep the plugs in the fridge until the day you inoculate. They hold there for two to three months, which is why the log inoculation kit range works so well as a present.

Which logs suit Turkey Tail?

Freshly cut hardwood. Oak, beech, birch, alder, ash and elm all work. Fruit woods are acceptable. Avoid softwoods and conifers entirely.

Freshness matters more than species. Use a log that was cut from a living tree between two and eight weeks before you inoculate. Cut it less than two weeks before and residual anti-fungal compounds in the fresh wood can hold your spawn plugs back. Leave it longer than eight weeks and rival mycelium may already have moved in, so your plugs end up competing against a resident rather than taking empty ground.

For Turkey Tail we would choose oak or beech. Dense wood is slower to colonise but feeds the fungus for longer. Birch is faster to drill but breaks down sooner.

How do you inoculate a Turkey Tail log?

Short version, because we have a full walkthrough elsewhere. Drill 8mm holes in a diamond pattern, a few inches apart, all the way round the log. Tap a plug into each hole until it sits just below the surface. Seal every plug with melted beeswax, and both cut ends too, since that is where moisture escapes fastest. Site the log somewhere shaded and in contact with the ground, where it stays damp.

For hole spacing, drilling depth, waxing technique and siting, read how to grow mushrooms on outdoor logs and keep the printed instructions beside you. Autumn and winter are the usual windows for Turkey Tail: dormant wood, damp weather, no summer heat.

Worked example: two oak rounds inoculated in late autumn

A grower in Sussex cuts two oak rounds in early November, each about a metre long. They stack them for three weeks, then order two Turkey Tail kits, 60 plugs, 30 per log. Two of the same variety is where the £8.00 each price applies.

Inoculation day is the last Saturday of November, inside the two to eight week window after felling. Two hours with a drill, an 8mm bit, a pan of beeswax and a paintbrush. Both logs are drilled, plugged and waxed on every hole and both cut ends, then laid on leaf litter behind a shed on the north side, half shaded.

At 6 months, the following May. Almost nothing visible. Chip a little wax off one plug and there is white mycelium at the edge of the hole, spreading into the wood. That is the only sign, and it is the right sign. The grower re-seals it and hoses the logs during dry spells.

At 12 months, the next November. The cut ends have gone pale where mycelium has run through the end grain, and the log sounds duller when tapped. Still no brackets. Normal, and not a failure.

At 18 months, the following May. Small bumps appear along the flanks of one log. Within weeks they open into banded fans no bigger than a thumbnail, then widen into overlapping tiers. The second log, denser and slower, follows in the autumn. Both keep producing for three to five years.

Worked example: your first harvest, dried and simmered

What to pick. Brackets at full width that still show a pale growing rim. Flexible, clean edged, free of green algae or slug damage. Cut them at the base with a sharp knife, flush to the wood. Do not tear them off, because ripping damages the wood underneath.

What to leave. Anything still small and widening. Old brackets gone hard, dull and darkened at the edges. Anything with green on it. And leave a share of the flush, because the log is a long term asset.

Drying. Brush off grit, do not wash. Cut each bracket into strips about a centimetre wide with kitchen scissors while they are still flexible, because once dry they go rigid. Spread them on a rack somewhere warm and airy, or use a dehydrator on a low setting. They are done when a strip snaps rather than bends. Store in an airtight jar in the dark. Our guide on how to dry mushrooms at home has more on racks and dehydrators.

A simple decoction. A small handful of dried strips into a pan, covered with water, brought to a bare simmer with the lid on and held there about an hour. Strain. The liquid comes out amber to reddish brown, woody and faintly bitter. Some add ginger or a squeeze of lemon. Drink it warm, compost the spent strips. That is a traditional preparation and nothing more.

How does Turkey Tail compare with the other log varieties?

Seven varieties sit on the log range: White Oyster, Shiitake, Lion's Mane, Tarragon Oyster (Native), Golden Enoki, Summer Oyster (Native) and Turkey Tail (UK Native). All use the same 30 plug kit, method and 12 to 18 month window. What differs is the end product.

Versus Shiitake. Shiitake is Lentinula edodes, the classic log species and the most widely cultivated mushroom on logs anywhere in the world. It is a dinner mushroom: meaty, savoury, cooked and eaten. If you want food on a plate, take Shiitake. If you want the fungus itself and a jar of dried strips for tea, take Turkey Tail.

Versus Lion's Mane. Lion's Mane is Hericium erinaceus, the white shaggy one, tender and mild and usually sliced and fried. Another food crop. Plenty of people run one log of each.

Versus the oysters and Golden Enoki. White Oyster, Summer Oyster, Tarragon Oyster and Golden Enoki (Flammulina velutipes) are fast, generous, edible croppers. Turkey Tail is slower and gives you something you preserve, not cook.

The closest relative anywhere in our mushroom growing kits category is the Reishi kit at £15.95, Ganoderma multipileum, another woody bracket fungus traditionally simmered rather than eaten.

Can you grow Turkey Tail indoors on a ready growing kit?

No. Turkey Tail is a log species in our range and there is no indoor ready growing version. It needs wood, weather and time. It will not perform on the sort of block that gives you mushrooms in a fortnight on a windowsill.

For mushrooms in days rather than months, buy a ready growing kit instead. Those arrive already colonised, you cut the holes and mist twice a day, and oyster varieties typically crop in 7 to 10 days with 2 to 3 harvests over 3 to 4 weeks. The Shiitake ready growing kit at £18.95 and the Lion's Mane ready growing kit at £22.46 are where most people start. For many households the honest answer is both.

Does a Turkey Tail log make a good gift?

It makes a very good one, for the same reason it looks awkward as an impulse buy. The plugs keep in the fridge for two to three months, so no deadline hangs over the recipient. A hand written gift note can be added at checkout for £0.50. For someone with a garden, a wood pile or shade behind a shed, this lands better than almost anything else we sell. Browse the wider mushroom gifts range if you want to pair it with something they can use straight away, and our growing guides hub is there for them when the log wakes up.

Frequently asked questions

Start your Turkey Tail log

Turkey Tail is the slowest thing we sell and, for a certain kind of grower, the most satisfying. You cut a log, spend an afternoon with a drill and a pan of wax, then wait for a native fungus to do the rest. After that it runs for three to five years with almost nothing asked of you.