Dog-Safe Ways To Kill Yard Mushrooms

It’s late spring here in Ohio and we’ve had a hot and humid season so far. 

Pair that with a new area of grass that we planted to fix the effects of a wet fall and winter with 2 Newfies and now we have a small field of backyard mushrooms that I’m combatting. 

Thankfully, the area of grass in our backyard that has the most mushrooms sprouting is fenced off from the dogs, but it still gives me major anxiety since there are many varieties of backyard mushrooms that can be poisonous to dogs. 

Every day I go out there and pick the new mushrooms and it seems like just as fast as I can pick them, new ones sprout. 

 

I need to take care of this area and stop as many mushrooms from growing because our plan was to take down the fence at the end of June. 

Needless to say, since I have 3 dogs, I don’t want to treat this area with any toxic chemicals that could harm them or the newly grown grass. 

So I set out to try and smash our backyard mushroom problem in a safe and easy way. 

Dog-Safe Ways To Kill Yard Mushrooms

Instead of using a dangerous fungal pesticide, there are a handful of ways that you can safely kill backyard mushrooms without ruining your grass and also keeping your pets safe.

These dog-safe mushroom killer recipes use common household items that most people have like:

• Baking soda
• Dish soap
• Vinegar
• Hot water

I’m currently testing out the baking soda + water recipe and the dish soap + water recipe. 

I didn’t do the vinegar because I didn’t want to kill the surrounding grass and I also didn’t have the correct type of vinegar on hand. (It’s recommended to use horticulture vinegar)

I didn’t use the boiling water method because again, I don’t want to kill the surrounding grass because I’ve spent the last month trying to grow it.

Baking soda + water dog-safe mushroom killer DIY recipe

The baking soda and water recipe is pretty easy. 

Mix 2 tablespoons of baking soda to 1 gallon of water and wither pour the mixture onto the mushrooms from a bucket or transfer into a spray bottle.

Make sure to spray the mushroom and the soil under the mushroom. 

You can also just sprinkle baking soda over the mushrooms and add water accordingly.

You’ll have to do this for several days in order to change the pH of the soil and you might ruin your grass. 

Dish soap + water 

Mix one or two tablespoons of dish soap with up to three gallons of water.

Poke holes in the area of soil around the mushrooms.

Pour the soapy water over the mushrooms making sure the mixture gets into the holes that you poked. 

Pluck the mushrooms

Another natural way to kill backyard mushrooms is to remove mushrooms is to safely pluck them from the ground and dispose of them in a sealed plastic bag. 

It’s important to tie the bag off to prevent the spores from traveling into other areas of your yard and also make sure to wear gloves. 

Nitrogen fertilizer

If everything else fails, it might be time to use a pet-safe nitrogen-based fertilizer.  (We use a dog-safe fertilizer that we bought from Menards)

I’ve been just plucking my backyard mushrooms but I need to do something else because they’re getting out of control. 

Remove Decaying Debris

Remove dead grass clippings, leaves, and any other decaying organic material. 

I’ll update this post in about a week to let you know which way worked best for dog-safe ways to kill backyard mushrooms.

If You Think You Have Toxic Mushrooms In Your Yard

If you’re concerned that you might have toxic mushrooms in your yard and you want to know for sure, you can check with your local garden store to see if they have anyone that can identify mushrooms or reach out to a local mushroom expert in your area. 

You can also join the Mushroom Identification Group on Facebook. 

This is an original post made for My Brown Newfies website only

 

 

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