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Pics of a 15 cup casing comming soon

Find a shady location for the bed and scrape the duff away just as big as the patch will be. Assuming this is a single quart of spawn, spread it over an 8 inch square area and then layer over the top with 2 inches of coarse wood chips. This should be roughly flat to the surrounding ground or slightly heaped up. Keep it watered all summer long and you should get a crop this Fall. You can check the progress of the mycelium by removing a few chips in the center of the bed down to the spawn layer. The lower 1 inch of chip depth should remain moist and never dry out all summer long.

Coarse chips should average 1-3 inches long. The larger sized chip retains moisture and packs less densely for a superior bed structure.

Fresh chips are best but old chips can be boiled to kill any competing fungi before use. Dry chips should be soaked overnight before use.

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The Spore Works
Exotic Spore Supply
sporeworks.com

I've already dug a bed maybe 4 inches deep
and several square feet in area. Should I
replace the dirt in the area that won't be
used this year?

If I remember right, I've got 3 quarts of
azure spawn, but the substrate is mostly
uncolonized. The colonization didn't stall
out when all but the bottom of the jars were
colonized, as often happens with cubensis.
Instead, I had succeeded in getting colonies
started throughout the jars, but
colonization stalled out before the jars
were even 1/3 colonized, and in most places
the different colonies aren't even touching
each other.

Should I get rid of the uncolonized sawdust/
bran substrate before planting in order to
minimize the chances of contamination? If
not, should I still use the same size bed
you're suggesting? (You're suggesting a bed
8 inches square (64 square inches) per quart
of COMPLETELY COLONIZED substrate, right?)

I've got alder chips I bought from Fungi
Perfecti maybe a year ago. They're still wet
since I never opened the bags they came in,
but I doubt they're sterile. Should I
sterilize them in a pressure cooker, just
examine them to see if they look
contaminated, or what? Or would it be worth
it to get new chips?

Do you recommend covering the woodchips with
a thin layer of potting soil (except for a
hole to check progress)? If so, I thought
I'd plant grass in the soil to keep it as
humid as possible at ground level. Can you
recommend a type of grass that grows well in
deep shade? Should I cover the bed with
plastic until fruiting season (either with
or without soil covering the wood chips)?

Thanks a lot for your expertise.

The damp chips should be ok if they are not growing molds or smell sour. Otherwise treat them to some hotwater (160F+ 30-45 minutes).

A thin layer of soil is acceptable to encourage grass. I prefer to leave the bed patchy with areas of soil and areas of exposed chips. Unless your climate is really dry, I would avoid using the plastic to lessen moisture loss. The stagnent air and high temps under the plastic encourages molds. The coarse chips (and soil) on top should be an adequate mulch. Don't expect the mycelium to grow all the way to the surface. There should be an uncolonized top layer of chips over the densely colonized layer just below.

I would replace the dirt in the unplanted area pressing it close to the bed's edges. Grass and weeds should grow thickly at the patch border, do not mow.

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The Spore Works
Exotic Spore Supply
sporeworks.com