Growing mushrooms in your backyard isn’t a very tough job. It’s something that anyone who wants to grow their own food should consider. However, it requires a bit of care. Since they’re low in calories and fat, they’re a healthy addition to our daily diet. Additionally, growing them at home is easy and doesn’t require a lot of hardwork. Indoors are the best place to grow mushrooms because you have more control over lighting and other factors that can affect their growth.
Below are the steps to grow mushrooms.
Determine the type of mushroom that you want to grow: Three types of mushrooms that can be grown easily at home are shitake, oyster and white button. The method used for growing all these mushrooms is similar. However, source material differs. White button mushrooms grow best in composted manure, oysters grow best in straw while shitakes grow best in sawdust. sign of a healthy lawn Your preferences in taste and health will determine which type of mushroom you grow.
Purchase mushroom spawn, or spores. These are the seeds for growing mushrooms. Mushroom spawn serves as the root structure of fungus. Basically it includes sawdust permeated with mushroom mycelia. Several online retailers sell it or you can purchase it from your preferred offline gardening supply store too. On the other hand, spores also do the same but require a bit of practice and expertise in comparison to spawn. In short, if you aren’t a seasoned mushroom grower you should always avoid the spores and opt for spawn instead.
Spread mycelia into the growing medium by heating it: Before you start growing your favorite nutritious mushrooms, you’ll need to spread the mycelia equally and thoroughly in growing medium. This is where heat can be of great help. For doing this place your preferred growing medium into a pan and mix mycelia into it from your hands. After mixing it place the pan on a heating pad that has temperature set to 21deg C (or 70deg F), which is the finest temperature for encouraging growth of mushrooms. After this you can leave the whole setup in a dark environment for 3 weeks.
You must provide the right environment to encourage growth. After three weeks, you will need to move your setup into a dark and cool environment. While a basement might work well in some cases, anxiety disorder a cabinet in an unheated area will be sufficient for the job in winter. Cover your growing medium with potting soil and spray of water. For preventing moisture loss you can place a wet towel over the pan if necessary. The key thing worth remembering here is that your medium should remain moist and cool as mushrooms grow. You can keep them hydrated by spraying water when necessary.
When they are fully grown, harvest them. After a period of 3 weeks, your mushrooms should be ready to harvest. At first you’ll see small mushrooms appearing… keep encouraging their growth by keeping environment dark, moist, and cool. Once their caps are separated from their stems, harvest them. They are easy to remove from your hands. Rinse them with water and they’re ready to be cooked!
