If you want to try growing mushrooms at home, a mushroom growing kit is one of the best ways to get started. Kits come with everything you need, and they provide a nice interactive lesson on mushroom biology. Better yet, the lesson ends with fresh mushrooms for your dinner plate!
However, once you start looking at kits, you’ll realize there are a lot of options out there.
What is a Mushroom?
A mushroom is the fruiting body of certain species of fungi. While all mushrooms are fungi, not all fungi are mushrooms! After all, the mold in your bathroom is a fungus, but it’s not a mushroom.
It’s important to remember that a mushroom is just one part of a fungus, just as a fruit is only one part of a plant. The purpose of a mushroom is to help the fungus reproduce and spread to other areas.
How do they do this? By producing tiny reproductive structures called spores.
When spores land in a suitable location, they germinate and send a strand called hyphae into the ground. This hyphae grows and becomes a network of filaments called mycelium. Once conditions are right, the mycelium begins producing mushrooms.
What is a Mushroom Kit?
A mushroom kit consists of a plastic bag filled with spawn. Spawn is a substrate such as straw or sawdust that has been inoculated with mycelium.
Kits are a great option if you’re just getting started with mushroom farming. They come with everything you need, including instructions.
Best Mushroom Kits for Beginners?
When you start looking at mushroom kits, you’ll realize there are lots of options available. When you’re getting starting growing mushrooms, it’s best to stick with easy-to-grow species. We’ve included some of the top kits for beginners below.
Mushroom Kits from Forest Origins
Forest Origins produces a number of different mushroom kits that are perfect for beginners including the oyster kits. Both the pink oyster kit and white oyster kit provide everything you need to get started growing oyster mushrooms.
When you’re ready to begin growing your mushrooms, take the plastic bag full of spawn out of the box. Cut a hole in the plastic, and mist the bag with water.
Within a week, you’ll begin to see mushrooms poking out through the bag. Yes, it’s that easy!
Mushroom Kits from Root Mushroom Farm
If you’re interested in growing golden oyster mushrooms, check out this golden oyster mushroom kit from Root Mushroom Farm. It comes with everything you need to grow approximately three pounds of mushrooms.
Once you receive the kit, all you need to do is take the bag out of the box and mist it with the provided spray bottle. Within a week, you’ll see the yellow mushrooms starting to grow. The first flush will be ready to harvest within 5-10 days.
With the right conditions, you’ll be able to get one or two more harvests out of your kit.
If you’re looking to grow the exotic and delicious lion’s mane mushroom, try out this mushroom growing kit from Root Mushroom Farm. While these shaggy mushrooms are hard to find in stores, they’re easy to grow at home.
Once you receive your kit, you’ll see a bag full of four pounds of spawn. Cut slits in the bag and thoroughly mist it with water. Within ten days, you’ll see the first flush of mushrooms growing. This first flush will be ready to harvest within a week.
Over the next two months, you can expect to harvest one to three more flushes.
How to Obtain Success with Mushroom Kits
Just because you buy a great mushroom growing kit, you still have to put in some work.
One of the keys to producing mushrooms is providing the proper environment. Each mushroom species does best at a specific temperature, light level, and moisture level. When you buy a kit, it should explain what environment the mushroom does best in.
For example, lion’s mane fruit best at a temperature between 65-75ºF while blue oyster mushrooms can fruit at lower temperatures between 50-65ºF. In general, mushrooms don’t perform well at temperatures lower than 50ºF or higher than 90ºF.
Luckily, your house temperature probably falls within the acceptable mushroom range.
Another key factor in growing mushrooms is moisture. The mycelium needs to be kept damp in order for it to produce mushrooms. So, grab a spray bottle and mist your bag with water each day.
One more factor that impacts mushroom growth is light. Most mushrooms prefer gentle, indirect light. So, don’t place your kit in a sunny window. Remember, mushrooms are not plants!
Harvesting Your Mushrooms
Depending on the species, you should see tiny mushrooms beginning to grow within one to two weeks of opening your kit and spraying your bag. Over the next week, you’ll be able to see your mushrooms grow each day.
Watching your expand is one of the best parts about growing mushrooms. They start off as tiny little dots and quickly morph into mature mushrooms.
About a week after they first appeared, your mushrooms will be ready to harvest. At this point, pull the whole mushroom out of the bag. It’s important to remove the stem so it doesn’t rot in the bag.
After your initial harvest, you can expect a smaller second flush of mushrooms in one to four weeks. Make sure you continue misting your bag during this period!
Depending on the mushroom growing kit, you might even see a third and fourth flush of mushrooms. However, these flushes will be much smaller than the first flush.
Start Growing
Mushrooms growing kits make it easy for anyone to try growing mushrooms at home. So pick one of the best mushroom growing kits for beginners and get started! After only a few weeks, you’ll be harvesting fresh and delicious mushrooms.