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Mushrooms - growing your own advice

mrmhfmrmhf Posts: 37
in Fruit & veg

We’ve had a successful veg growing season, and we’re considering growing these mushrooms. Any advice, comment, suggestions or feedback?

My hesitation is the price versus the description. It doesn’t seem to say we will get large amounts (rather, handfuls), so for the price, are they worth it?
Our country living, smallholding and sustainability journey: https://myhomefarm.co.uk

Posts

  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,385
    Not worth it in terms of produce, but they are fun to grow.
    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • josusa47josusa47 Posts: 3,530
    Someone gave me a kit for growing oyster mushrooms on a soggy paperback book.  That was fun, but the mushrooms were pretty tasteless.  I spent a lot of time and money on drilling holes in logs and preparing boxes of wood chip and home-made compost for commercially produced spawn.  Followed all the instructions, waited months, two years, nothing.  
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    edited October 2020
    "growing your own advice"

    Patent this and make millions of dosh.
  • SkandiSkandi Posts: 1,723
    I've successfully grown oysters before, but I only bought spawn and then boiled rye and straw and used that to grow on in standard freezer bags. It works, it's fun and it's not to expensive, I would say it is worth it to have something gardening related to look at in the winter when it's dark wet and windy!
    I have also tried to grow button mushrooms with a kit and got precisely 0.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    Ma used to grow mushrooms in a shed on the farm when I was a child. The shed was the size of a hunter’s loose box. She built a bed of stable manure topped with peat and left it to build up heat to the required temperature, (whatever that was). Then the mushroom ‘spawn’ was sprinkled on the bed and IIRC it was watered in. The temperature in the shed had to be kept within a specified range. 

    She got several crops of very nice mushrooms some of which were sold to the local ‘travelling greengrocer’ ... and some were sold at the door (as we sold some eggs in that way). The rest were eaten by us. 

    All in all it wasn’t very profitable and Ma didn’t bother to grow them again. 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • mrmhfmrmhf Posts: 37
    This may be an ignorant question but can you grow mushrooms indoors, in a dark, cool place all year round?
    Our country living, smallholding and sustainability journey: https://myhomefarm.co.uk
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    Think they need a pretty constant temp of 15C

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





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