Indoor Mushroom Growing

Growing a Mushroom Kit is a simple indoor gardening project that you can enjoy at any time of the year.

Edible mushroom kits are growing more and more popular and can be obtained through various Internet or mail order sources.

Using Gourmet Mushroom Kits

Gourmet mushroom growing kits usually consist of a 12 by 12 inch square block of compressed sawdust that’s been enriched and inoculated with spawn (mushroom seeds) of the particular mushroom variety being cultivated.

Indoor mushroom kits include everything that you need to grow loads of delicious mushrooms just by following the simple directions. You normally soak the kit in cold, unchlorinated water for a few hours and then place it in a dark area with temperatures ranging between 60 – 75 F.

This cold water treatment will stimulate the mushroom spawn to become active and start producing edible mushrooms within a matter of days. Before the mushrooms have finished growing the entire growing medium will be completely covered with mushrooms.

Harvesting Your Shrooms

Once you’ve harvested the first crop of gourmet mushrooms that isn’t the end of your indoor mushroom garden. Allow the spawn to rest for a couple of weeks and then you can repeat the entire process to produce additional harvests of delicious mushrooms.

The subsequent crops of mushrooms will grow smaller and produce fewer mushrooms until the nutrients contained in the growing medium have been depleted. Then the remnants of the kit can be used to inoculate an outdoor garden compost pile or hardwood logs.

Mushroom Varieties for Indoor Cultivation

Popular indoor mushroom kit varieties include: Shiitake, Oyster, Lion’s Mane, Nameko, Maitake, Enokitake, and Cinnamon Cap mushrooms. The mushroom kits can also serve as an interesting project to introduce children to the fascinating world of edible fungi.

If you’re intrigued by the idea of growing your own edible gourmet mushrooms, an alternative to growing them indoors using the mushroom kits is to grow mushrooms outdoors with hardwood logs. Tomorrow I’ll look at the benefits of growing mushrooms outdoors directly on hardwood logs.