Anyone who has eaten mushrooms, cooked with them or foraged in the wild for them has probably thought about making life easier and growing their own mushrooms.
Choosing to grow your own mushrooms mean you can control what variety to raise, so you can pick your favorite. You can control the conditions to get the results you desire. And you don’t have to worry whether a Chanterelle is actually a poisonous Jack O’Lantern, like you do when foraging in the wild.
Having your personal garden of mushrooms also means you can get access to some of the top medicinal mushroom varieties.
So here is our guide to the beginner’s 5 steps to growing your own mushrooms.
1. Decide On The Type
The type of mushrooms you grow depends to some extent on what you like to eat. There are also some that are easier to grow at home.
Here are some ideas to get you started choosing a mushroom to grow at home:
Shiitake: Besides being delicious, the Shiitake has a number of health benefits that make it worth growing at home. Shiitakes are a good source of iron, important for vegetarians whose diets may be lacking in it. They contain antioxidants, which help reduce harmful free radicals. Shiitakes also have D-Eritadenine, or DEA, which supports cardiovascular health and helps lower cholesterol.
Their worldwide popularity comes from the fact that they are loved for their rich, savory flavor, often described as “earthy.” Shiitake has also been described as having “umami,” one of the five basic tastes along with salty, sour, sweet and bitter.
Lion’s Mane: This mushroom provides a number of cognitive health benefits, such as the potential to repair some of the damage done to the brain with its compounds that may stimulate the growth of brain cells. It may also help with depression and anxiety, provide benefits to the digestive tract, aid with inflammation, and have antioxidant properties.
In terms of eating Lion’s Mane, don’t let its “bearded” look fool you: when cooked, it’s often described as similar to lobster meat, in that it is meaty and stringy, with a sweet and savory taste. Try out our own Lion’s Mane recipe, simple yet delicious.
Button Mushrooms: With so many varieties of mushrooms, it’s easy to forget the common button mushroom. But this easy-to-grow variety still contains the positive health traits of all mushrooms. They contain fiber, vitamins and minerals, while also being low in caloric value and fat. Buttons are also versatile. You can eat them raw, making them a tasty addition to salads, or you can cook and add them to recipes or serve as a side.
Oyster Mushrooms: As a beginner, your best bet may be to start with Oyster mushrooms, because they’re fairly easy to grow. There are different colors of oyster mushrooms, including golden oysters, pink oysters and pearl oysters.
Studies show the oyster contains various compounds that support cardiometabolic health, and they also have a high level of a form of dietary fiber that helps prevent insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and obesity. Their flavor is often described as “cashew-like,” making them a great addition to recipes, or fried and eaten on their own. Try out our own Fried Oyster Mushrooms recipe here.
Other options include Enoki mushrooms, Chanterelles and others. But if you want an easy-to-grow mushroom to start, Oysters are a good choice. Once you learn the process with this variety, you can tackle more challenging types. But any of these mushrooms are possibilities to grow at home.
2. Obtain The Spawn
The next step is to obtain the mushroom spawn. If you’re asking: What’s a mushroom spawn? Let’s look at the key terms you need to know to grow mushrooms.
Substrate: the material in which mushrooms grow.
Mycelium: the living or vegetative part of the mushroom.
Spawn: mycelium grown onto a substrate, which is like the seeds for growing mushrooms. This spawn is used to inoculate substrate to reproduce the fungus.
Spores: what mushrooms produce instead of seeds. They are microscopic and each mushroom produces millions of them.
Inoculated substrate: this means the substrate has been injected with mushroom spawn.
The easiest way to get spawn is to purchase spores from a retailer, such as an online store. Some plant stores sell mushroom spawn. Most beginners start with this option.
Different types of mushroom spawn include grain spawn, sawdust spawn, plug spawn (a collection of small wooden dowels inoculated with mycelium), and liquid spawn. A mushroom spore syringe is another way to inoculate substrate.
More advanced growers start their own spawn from a spore. This is much more difficult and involves taking a spore print from an existing mushroom. If you’re new to mushroom cultivation, it’s better to purchase and start from spawn.
3. Choose Your Substrate
Once you have the spawn, next is to choose the substrate for growing, which is the material on which the mushrooms will grow. The choice of substrate depends largely on the type of mushroom.
For instance, if you start with the easiest choice, the Oyster mushroom can grow on almost anything. People have successfully cultivated Oyster mushrooms on cardboard, wood pellets, wood shavings, corn cobs, and paper bags.
Other common substrates include pasteurized straw, sawdust from hardwoods such as oak, beech and maple, soy hulls, and even coffee grounds.
Any option of substrate has to be treated prior to cultivation, which can be done via stove top pasteurization, lime baths, or cold fermentation.
4. “Plant” Your Spawn
Once you’ve chosen and prepared your substrate, it’s time to start growing your mushrooms. This is called inoculating the spawn. Inoculation is a somewhat complex process, involving the use of a heated syringe to implant the spawn into the substrate.
Once again, Oyster mushrooms are easier to inoculate than other species. Simply mix the substrate, which should be moist, but not dripping wet, with the spawn. Then scoop it into bags, and spread it out on your growing surface. Incubate the substrate mix until the bag it’s contained in has turned completely white.
Growing mushrooms of other varieties might mean buying substrate that’s already inoculated. Or, you might purchase plugs and insert them in dead trees if you live in a forested area.
For other mushrooms, you may decide to purchase sawdust spawn. Or, as you get more advanced, you may create your own substrate and then start producing your own mycelium by taking spore prints of existing mushrooms.
5. Fruit The Mushrooms
The final step is to fruit and harvest your mushrooms.
To do this, cut a small slit in the bag to allow for airflow, and find a source of indirect light. Oysters can thrive in any temperature in the 50 to 80-degree Fahrenheit range.
Within a week, your mushrooms should begin to fruit. When the caps of the Oyster mushrooms start to flatten out, it’s time to harvest.
Other Considerations
That’s the basic five steps to growing mushrooms at home. But you may have other questions, such as: Are mushrooms hard to grow?
The answer is no, if you have the information you need to be successful. So here are a few more considerations as you embark on growing mushrooms at home.
Where to Grow Mushrooms
The first step in growing mushrooms is understanding your environment, and whether you can grow mushrooms naturally, or you need to purchase special equipment.
Outside, mushrooms will need a shady, humid location that doesn’t get direct sunlight. A patch that’s surrounded by trees or bushes is best. If you live in a rural or wooded area, you may be able to use the natural environment as the substrate.
For those growing indoors, the same type of environment is still important. Mushrooms thrive best in humid, dark, settings. Choose a room that doesn’t get a lot of sunlight, or where the interior lights aren’t on for long periods of time. You can even consider growing mushrooms in a closet or laundry room.
Some people choose to purchase mushroom growing “huts” or houses with special lamps. Some set up larger mushroom growing setups in a garage or shed. It just depends how much you want to invest, in time and money.
And if you’re wondering Is it dangerous to grow mushrooms in your house? The answer is yes, but you should still be cautious. For instance, workers exposed to large quantities of mushroom spores can develop a condition called “mushroom worker’s lung.” If you’re concerned about sensitivity, you can wear a mask when you’re working with mushrooms. But a small-scale home mushroom garden should not be a concern.
Another common question is: What are the mushrooms that grow in your backyard? Don’t confuse those with the tasty mushrooms you’re about to grow.
While not all lawn mushrooms are poisonous, there’s always a chance they could be. It’s best to keep your lawn and garden free of mushrooms, and dispose of them properly.
To recap, here are the steps to preparing and growing mushrooms:
1. Obtain your substrate and prepare it properly, which may involve sterilization or pasteurization. Substrates like straw need to be pasteurized, which is a process of heating it with steam or hot water to reduce contaminants. Other substrate like hardwood sawdust needs to be sterilized, which involves heating it to extreme temperatures to eliminate contaminants.
2. “Inoculate” the substrate by adding the mushroom spawn and mixing it into the substrate. Depending on what type of mushrooms you’re growing, this might involve different processes. You may have purchased substrate that’s already prepared with spawn, or you may be inserting plugs into logs.
3. Ensure appropriate water in the substrate. That doesn’t mean adding water, because the process of sterilization or pasteurization adds water to the substrate. But the fruiting bodies of mushrooms can’t dry out, which is why humidity is so important. Some steps to ensure that include misting the substrate on a regular basis. For the first few weeks, you might have to mist them daily.
4. Pick the mushrooms when they’re ready. Once you get your mushroom spores “planted,” the mycelium will start to grow. Which raises the next question: How long does it take mushrooms to grow? The full process is between one and two months, from the time you inoculate the substrate to the time you pick and eat the mushrooms. Of course, that varies by mushroom variety, but that’s a rough estimate. In the meantime, you can watch the mushrooms grow, but give them time to mature. An Oyster mushroom, for instance, is ready to pick when the caps start to flatten out.
5. Dispose of the substrate. When your mushrooms have been picked, you’ll be left with the substrate. If you grow mushrooms often, that could mean a lot of spent material. A good option for disposal is to compost it. The material should decompose naturally, and may even produce another flush of mushrooms. If not, it turns into a great substance that can be added to your garden.
Tips for mushroom growth
Here are a few top tips for growing mushrooms:
1. Understand the variety you plan to grow, the substrate required and the care necessary.
2. If you like, start with a mushroom growing kit to give you a greater understanding of how mushrooms grow.
3. Be prepared to spend time looking after the mushrooms. While that doesn’t mean hours every day, it does mean keeping an eye on them on a daily basis, ensuring they don’t dry out or get too wet. Similar to growing a garden, growing mushrooms does require oversight.
4. Be patient. If at first you don’t succeed, review what you did and try again.
Wrap Up
Growing your own mushrooms can be challenging, but fulfilling. Start with the easiest variety, Oyster mushrooms, and work your way to more difficult species as you learn the steps to growing mushrooms.
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