Growing Mushrooms: how to grow mushrooms at home

Mushroom Growing Supplies

Are you interested in growing your very own edible mushrooms at home? Mushroom cultivation has actually been around for thousands of years and in the United States, modern mushroom cultivation has developed so much these past few decades that absolutely anyone who has a passion for growing things can try it in the comfort of their home.

Mushroom cultivation is not as difficult as it seems; it is a lot like gardening only this time, you won't be planting seeds or saplings. You will be taking care of fungal mycelium that would later sprout tasty, edible fruiting bodies known as mushrooms.

But don't be deceived - mushrooms don't just sprout from the ground after you've thrown some mycelium. If you want maximum yield, you need to prepare the substrate carefully and add the right amount of spawn to the substrate.

The spawn is really just the fungi attached to a nutrient source. Many mushroom growers use grains like rye to propagate mycelium. When mycelium has finally colonized a batch of grains, the fungi is robust enough to colonize a larger tract ñ the substrate.

Mother Nature knew that fungi can overrun whole forests if it thrived too easily, so it made sure that fungi had very specific requirements before it can produce fruiting bodies.

Fruiting bodies release millions of spores into the air, which allows the fungi to reproduce in other areas. Technically, the mushroom is the reproductive organ of fungi. Without it, reproduction would be impossible in the wild.

The first thing that you would need if you are serious about cultivating mushrooms is a batch of sturdy petri dishes. Petri dishes are used in the first phase of mushroom cultivation (culturing/cloning mycelium).

Agar and some culture are added to the petri dishes and the mycelium is allowed to thrive in the agar. A nutrient source is required. Some people use oatmeal while some like grinding dog food. Mycelium primarily requires carbohydrates so it would be a good idea to add a bit of sugar to your agar to boost the development of the mycelium.

When viable pure culture has finally been obtained, you will then require some rye grain, a large pressure cooker and some glass jars/canning jars with resalable caps. The rye grain and jars have to be "cooked" in the pressure cooker for a time to remove traces of fungi and bacteria. After the sterilization, the prepared culture can then be added to the rye grain.

After the second spawn run, you would have exactly two batches of viable grain spawn. Choose your substrate (e.g. wood chips) and use a rake to spread the contents of your jars. Even distribution is the key to successful mushroom cultivation so make sure that you add a little more spawn per batch of substrate.

After adding the substrate, add the substrate supplement. Animal manure is an excellent choice. Just make sure that you monitor the temperature of the substrate. If it gets too hot, there's a big chance that the mycelium (which is just getting ready to colonize the substrate) will die.

Growing Mushrooms From Scratch At Home

Mushroom cultivation has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years because of the ease at which ordinary people can begin growing and harvesting fresh, edible mushrooms. Growing mushrooms is practical for both cooking enthusiasts and entrepreneurial spirits because it has a large market and it can be used in almost any dish.

You can grow mushrooms for your personal consumption or you can harvest them to sell later to your local market. Either way, you are going to benefit from cultivating them at home because edible mushrooms can either be consumed or sold for a nice profit.

The first thing that you need to know about growing mushrooms is that these fruiting bodies are extremely sensitive to two environmental factors: temperature and humidity.

This is the reason why it is recommended that you start growing mushrooms during the spring/fall seasons. This way, you won't have to exert extra effort just to stabilize the ambient temperature of your growing area. Your growing area can be an outdoor or indoor space dedicated to your mushrooms.

Many mushroom farmers opt for indoor growing spaces because it is easier to control the humidity and temperature of a given space if it is protected by four walls and a roof.

If you are feeling adventurous, we recommend that you try culturing your own mycelium. This doesn't require a lot of technical know-how but it will take some time before you are able to master the process and produce mycelium that you would be proud to store for later use.

Let's talk about the substrate. If you are planning to grow oyster mushrooms or button mushrooms, you have probably been told to use cut wheat straw or even cottonseed hulls. You can choose either one of these two or you can just combine them.

Either way, the mushrooms will grow. However, if you are planning to produce mushrooms for your local market, you might want to combine the two types of substrate to increase the overall capacity of the substrate to retain water.

Moisture is quite important to growing mushrooms. In fact, many beginning mushroom farmers report sudden wilting because their substrates became too dry. In the wild, mushrooms grow because a number of ideal factors came together.

But this doesn't always happen (which would explain why some tasty edible mushrooms are rare in the wild). As a mushroom farmer, you should be aware of the different factors that trigger the continuous formation of fruiting bodies or mushrooms.

For example, if you are going to grow shiitake mushrooms, you would have to prepare a growing yard for the logs after the incubation period to trigger the formation of mushrooms.

The growing yard is cooler and at this point in time, the logs have to be monitored regularly for moisture content to ensure that the logs will produce the maximum amount of mushrooms during the harvesting season.

Whatever substrate you are using, always remember that your substrate must be of the right temperature, consistency (loose substrate will benefit from a little gypsum) and moisture content. Dry supplementation should also be considered to boost the seasonal yield of the substrate which would probably provide you with new mushrooms every few months, depending on the species of fungi that you have chosen.

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How To Grow Mushrooms At Home

Growing edible mushrooms at home is not rocket science. In fact, you can start growing mushrooms within the next few weeks if you start preparing the substrate and cultures today. Unlike more traditional agricultural practices that involve herbs, fruit trees, vegetables, etc., mushroom farming is anything but difficult.

The reason for this is quite simple: unlike plants, fungi is extremely resilient and it can literally take care of itself if ideal conditions are attained. A single batch of inoculated wood chips can yield mushrooms for years at a time.

And the best thing about this is you can easily increase the total mushroom yield by producing/purchasing viable spawn. If you are like most mushroom enthusiasts, you are probably drawn to the idea of producing your own pure mushroom culture. This is done by adding mycelium to a sterile base that has been supplemented with the necessary nutrients.

The culturing process is actually the time-consuming part of the whole process. You need to check the agar media for contaminations and you would also have to cross-check the appearance of the mycelium growing on your petri dishes to ensure that you are not growing the mycelium of some wild fungi.

Why is culturing performed? Culturing is performed to produce viable mycelium that would then colonize the sterilized material that would later become the spawn or "seeds" that would then be used to inoculate the substrate. Culturing might be hard work but it really does pay off because once you have healthy batches of pure culture you can just store the cultures in a freezer for later use.

Let's talk about the substrate that you will be using to grow your mushrooms. In most cases, you would probably need some form of loose substrate like straw or husks. Some edible mushrooms like the shiitake mushroom) would only grow on organic or synthetic logs.

These edible can only be grown properly if sawdust or plug spawn are used. There are several ways that you can incorporate sawdust spawn or plug spawn into an organic or synthetic log. The most common method is drilling large holes into the wood.

A hand injector is then used to directly apply the sawdust spawn into the wood. If the mushroom farmer has opted for plug spawn, the wooden plugs are simply hammered into the holes and then sealed with a special wax. Some mushroom farmers saw out small wedges from shorter cuts of wood.

The resulting space is then filled with sawdust spawn and then sealed once again with the wedge of wood. Of course, you can drill holes in smaller logs and use plug spawn instead of sawdust spawn. Sawdust spawn requires extra care so if you are pressed for time, use plug spawn instead.

Mushroom varieties like the oyster mushroom do well if they are grown in bottle or plastic bags. The plastic bags are filled to the brim with inoculated substrate and then left in a temperature-controlled growing area. The humidity of the growing area should be controlled through misting or by installed a centralized humidifying system.

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