If you’re a mushroom fanatic, probabilities are you’re paying a hefty price tag to choose up the valuable fungi at your nearby grocery. Because hunting wild mushrooms can be risky enterprise (as Frodo can inform you), many mushroom lovers are now opting to develop their own at house. It is not too hard to do, and with a tiny patience, you’ll have all the mushrooms you can possibly consume.
Choosing Your Mushrooms
Your mushroom growing expedition starts with picking the kinds of mushrooms you want to grow. You can experiment with one variety, or be brave and try a range. Some well known and easy-to-grow varieties include white button mushrooms, Shiitakes, and oyster mushrooms.
Most property gardeners begin out with a single range, as the distinctive fungi demand various growing habitats. White button mushrooms develop on composted manure, when oyster mushrooms thrive in straw, and Shiitakes typically do greatest on hardwood or sawdust.
If your space is restricted, get started with one particular variety and develop in batches nevertheless, if you have lots of space, feel free to go wild and attempt them all at when! In this write-up, nonetheless, we’ll talk about expanding button mushrooms, as these are the most well-known amongst dwelling gardeners.
Beginning Moon Bars develop from spores or spawn that can be bought at a great garden center. If your nearby garden center doesn’t carry mushroom spawn, there are plenty of retailers on line who carry an superb variety.
Set up a developing tray that is at least six inches deep, and fill it with a great mushroom compost. This can be a mix of effectively-rotted items like straw, hay, chicken litter and cottonseed meal. Most mushroom composts include sphagnum moss peat for consistency. When you can make your personal, it may be easiest to purchase some pre-mixed.
Wet down your compost so that it is very moist (but not soggy), then mix in your mushroom spawn. Make certain it’s fully incorporated into the compost, then tamp it all down effectively with a tray or board.
Let Your Mushrooms Grow
Your trays need to be kept at a steady temperature of 65-70 degrees for the subsequent couple weeks. Keep the mixture damp by spraying it down every day with water.
Quickly sufficient, you will see a white webbing begin to appear across the manure. That suggests your mushrooms are sprouting! Cover the surface with a layer of damp peat moss and top it off with moist newspapers. Continue to retain the complete point damp, and at a steady temperature of 55 degrees.
Sprout, Harvest, and Repeat
After one more ten days, you are going to start to see tiny white mushroom sprouts appearing. More than the next couple of days, the sprouts will grow into complete-sized mushrooms. Once they are at the size you want, you can begin harvesting and working with them.
But never throw out your mix just yet. Maintain it all damp and cool, and an additional crop will sprout inside two weeks. This will hold going for as lengthy as six months as lengthy as you preserve the appropriate temperature and keep the trays nicely-watered.
When your mushroom trays are totally spent, you can start once more from scratch, or move on to a new type of mushroom! Although increasing mushrooms at home takes a little work and a lot of patience, you are going to find that your residence-grown mushrooms taste far far better than any you could find at a grocery shop.
