If you have ever seen the mushroom kits they sell and wonder if you could also grow mushrooms at home , this is a good list for beginner mushrooms to get started.
Delicious culinary mushrooms can be pretty expensive to acquire from the store. But truth is you don’t need a lot of space to get a few flushes of mushrooms and they can be grown in a variety of ways.
Since more and more shroom kits have appeared alongside garden growing kits there is more interest of late in mushrooms. Some people don’t consider adding mushrooms to their growing list at first. Though they do make a good addition especially if you have a forested part of your yard which I have only just begun experimenting with.
I’ve seen some good results from other people trying to grow so I too have been interested in growing mushrooms either in grow bags or logs. I’ve been playing with a wild harvested oyster mushroom strain as well as nursed along some lion’s mane for a time until the kit was spent.
How to Grow Mushrooms Inside
The general idea is that it is actually easier to grow mushrooms indoors.
You have more control over the sprouting conditions so they can grow much quicker and for seasonal mushrooms you can trick them to make them think it is the right season. Mushrooms, need not be too hard though and some people buy one of the many growing kits to make their first grow easy.
SPORES VS SPAWN
A popular way to get started with mushrooms is to acquire spores or spawn. Mushroom spores what the mushrooms pump out, sort of their equivalent of seeds, to spread and grow more spawn. Spawn is like seedlings and you can use the active mycelium that develops to seed your substrate or log. Spawn is usually the easier one of the two for beginners.
LOCATION
Mushrooms like to grow where it is cool, dark, and wet.
You can use a variety of containers to grow them. Some people use grow bags, some use plastic buckets with little holes drilled in them, and a variety of other things work. The container needs to be at least 6 inches deep so you can have a good healthy base of mycelium going.
STARTING MUSHROOMS
Different mushrooms do better with different mushroom substrates. Oysters seem to grow okay in coffee grounds and carboard (though better in straw) while my lion’s mane did best in hardwood sawdust. For the best fruiting substrates you will have to check below.
To start your mushroom farm, inoculate the spawn by adding it to the correct growing medium. They start best around 70°F. If required you can use a heating element to keep their space warm. The key is keep them free of heat, light, and outside disruption.
Many weeks later the mycelium will have spread and colonized the growing medium. At this point, the temperature can be lowered though each mushroom has preferred temperatures or preferred fruiting conditions.
HARVESTING MUSHROOMS
Once all the fruiting conditions have been met, the fruiting bodies will erupt and mushrooms are ready to harvest once the cap is open and apart from the stem.
You want to cut the mushrooms off and avoid pulling as it can damage the fruiting site and disturb things.
FAQ About Growing Mushrooms
IS IT DIFFICULT TO GROW MUSHROOMS?
No, not really. You can have a good run with some starter spawn and growth media and get some flushes with decent ease. Usually you can expect to harvest mushrooms 3-4 weeks when done indoors. Outdoor mushrooms can be trickier, though even there I’ve had some pretty good flushes with a wild oyster strain I used to seed some logs.
DO MUSHROOMS NEED SUNLIGHT?
Mushrooms don’t have chlorophyll so they don’t need sunlight to survive. Light is sometimes required to help trigger the fruiting part of the mushroom lifecycle as well as air. This all depends on type of mushroom you are growing.
WILL MUSHROOMS GROW BACK AFTER YOU PICK THEM?
After harvest the original mushroom stem will rot away. In time new flushes may emerge from the fruiting spot until the substrate is spent. From there you can add new growing medium to be seeds further from the mycelium. New mushrooms can fruit and grow. For continuous crops, you will need a steady supply of growth medium and healthy spawn to keep seeding it.
The Best Types of Mushrooms to Grow at Home
Pleurotus ostreatus (PEARL OYSTER)
The species that is best suited for indoor bucket, bag, or jar cultivation is the pearl oyster. You have a decent bit of options here as well as the spawn can range from white, grey, pink, black, golden, or even the king oyster which is very large.
Of all the possible options oyster mushrooms seem the less fussy. The strain I’ve been working was collected wild as I’m in the Midwest and low and behold my forest nearby has ready access to a variety of mushrooms.
PREFERRED FRUITING SUBSTRATES
Oyster seems to do the best in pasteurized straw though seems to be the most adaptable with substrates and not too difficult as long as it has cellulose.
CLIMATE
Pleurotus ostreatus are prone to fruiting quite often and and seem to tolerate a range of growing conditions. They seem to fruit anywhere from 45–77°F.
TIME FROM INOCULATION TO FRUITING
These mushrooms are fast growers and spread through their substrate quickly. You can expect around 2 to 3 weeks for indoor cultivation so long as the temperature is ideal and the substrate is inoculated well.
Lentinula edodes (SHIITAKE)
Shiitake is another desirable mushroom coming in at around $20 a lb. People love farming these but often choose to seed some logs that they stack up outside as they are slow to grow and slow to fruit. With a good log farm outside a farmer can expect a decent supply a few times a year.
PREFERRED FRUITING SUBSTRATES
They really like hardwood logs of almost every type, though yields will vary according to the log species. Will readily take to oak, beech, or alder. They can also be grown on sawdust or clean wood pellets.
CLIMATE
Shiitake have different strains where some prefer colder temperature ranges and others prefer warmer temperature ranges. When acquiring spawn you want to check if there are temperature recommendations. Most good vendors will clearly indicate such information so you can pick what is suitable for your area.
TIME FROM INOCULATION TO FRUITING
Shiitake have a long time to go from inoculation to fruiting. When doing logs you can expect to wait 6-12 months. If you go for a sawdust block then you can expect 7-10 weeks.
Stropharia rugosoannulata (Wine Cap also called King Stropharia)
A tasty mushroom with a delicious nutty bite. This mushroom is a good beginner choice as it can quickly colonize outdoor beds and quickly produce flushes for harvest.
PREFERRED FRUITING SUBSTRATES
Hardwood sawdust (soft maple, poplar, box elder, and magnolia) or chips is best. It can also tolerate things such as straw. Not grown on logs and typically grown outside in their own mushroom beds in shady areas.
CLIMATE
Wine Cap grows best in warm weather 64-75°F but a cooler range seems to trigger the formation of mushrooms 68°F. They do grow in a very broad range of temperatures, from about 41–95°F, so they do well in temperate and subtropical climates. Moisture is important for them, so their growing beds need to be watered consistently.
TIME FROM INOCULATION TO FRUITING
Wine cap usually take about 2-3 months to spread over a bed if planted in spring. At times it might take up to 8 months for the first flushes to appear though a lot of it depends on environment and how the bed was seeded with spawn. You can expect more regular flushes every 4 weeks thereafter and throw on more chips to keep the bed working as the old chips get spent.
Lion’s Mane (Hericium erinaceus)
Lion’s Mane is known for producing these plump, shaggy mushroom clusters and their culinary use is as a meaty crab meat alternative. The mushroom can be cooked, dried, extracted, or used as tea. It is a bit more troublesome to get them to produce flushes than oysters, but they still serve well for many beginners and with experience can be reliable producers. The first kit I purchased was a lion’s mane and it yielded me 3 good flushes before the spawn was spent. For more harvests it wouldn’t have been too hard to move the spawn to a sterile substrate made of sawdust.
PREFERRED FRUITING SUBSTRATES
Lion’s Mane is typically grown in hardwood sawdust usually in block form, some blocks are supplemented with wheat bran or soy hulls.
CLIMATE
Typically lion’s mane likes to colonize and grow mycelium in the 70-75 °F range and the fruiting is triggered by a slight drop in temps between 50-65 °F. Requires decent moisture and fresh air for steady growth.
TIME FROM INOCULATION TO FRUITING
Lion’s mane can be grown on logs though with logs you can expect a 1 to 2 year delay before you get your first harvest. It is very slow growing on logs.
Lion’s mane is typically cultivated indoors in bags because the colonization goes a lot faster where you can harvest in a month then get several flushes off the one bag. This is why these are popular beginner kits that are often sold.
