How To Grow Oyster Mushrooms - Growing Mushrooms

Growing Oyster Mushrooms is one of the easiest, and tastiest, mushrooms that you can grow! It is the perfect choice for the novice mushroom grower. They have a delicate, meaty flavour and cook very quickly, making them perfect for a wide variety of meals.

There are many varieties of Oyster Mushrooms out there – yellow, pink, blue, white. In this tutorial, I will be teaching you how to grow the Blue Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotus Ostreatus var. Columbinus), one of the hardiest and easiest Oyster varieties to grow.

Learning how to grow mushrooms is not only good for your taste buds, but for your wallet as well. Oyster mushrooms are generally difficult to find and if found, can get pricey at supermarkets, going for $4-$6 a pound. Growing them at home is extremely cost-effective and make a great gift for your foodie friend.

Follow the step-by-step to get your first batch going today.

Important Note: Make sure you wash your hands thoroughly when following the instructions below so as not to contaminate your Oyster Mushroom medium.

Where to grow them

Oyster Mushrooms are great because they can pretty much grow anywhere. Unlike other mushrooms, they enjoy a little bit of light, so placing them in a shady area near a window is best. The area in which you are growing your Oyster Mushrooms should stay between 18-24 degrees Celsius (65-75 degrees Fahrenheit).

Materials

Oyster Mushroom Spawn

I recommend buying your Oyster Spawn from Amazon or Ebay. I bought my first spawn online and was very happy with the results.
Used Coffee Grounds

Yes, you can grow Oyster Mushrooms in used coffee grounds! Finally, something to do with those loads of grounds. My recommendation is to visit your local barista and ask for their coffee grounds. You’ll want to collect enough coffee grounds so that your coffee grounds to spawn ratio is around 5:1. So if you are buying 10 grams of Oyster Mushroom spawn from eBay above, then you’ll want to have 500 grams of coffee grounds (around 3 cups of coffee grounds). You’ll want to keep your coffee grounds from getting into contact with anything else; the brewing process rendered these grounds sterile and you need to keep them that way for your Oyster mycelium to succeed.
A 2 litre freezer bag

Make sure it is very clean; don’t use a used freezer bag.
A spray bottle

To keep those puppies moist.

Instructions

Take your 2 litre bag and cut four 5mm holes into it
Mix your spawn and coffee grounds together into the bag.

Make sure that the coffee grounds are moist but not waterlogged before you proceed with this step. If they are a bit dry, make sure you spray with water.
Seal the bag

You will need to wait 3 weeks until the spawn grows mycelium. Leave the bag undisturbed and when the weeks pass (and if all has gone well) you should see the whole thing turned white.
Slit the bag open

Lay the bag down in a box and grab a knife. Slit a 2×2 inches cross into the bag. Spray the opening with water around twice a day, make sure that things are staying moist, which is very important. After a week or so, you will see baby oysters bursting out to greet you. They will double in size over the next week.

Harvesting

When the edge of the caps begin to turn upwards, it’s time to harvest by cutting at the base of the stems. Be sure to harvest quickly to promote cluster formation. Stems are edible.