To grow mushrooms on wood, you need to start off choosing between one of two options: 

• Either pick out the species of mushrooms you want to grow and order yourself a mushroom growing log from a supplier. 
• Or if you live close to the woods and know what trees you have around your area that you can harvest logs from, then you can decide what mushrooms would be suitable candidates for growing on your logs.

A log should average 4 to 8 inches in diameter (could be more or less) and be roughly 3 feet long.  When you have your log you will need to the following:

• Drill holes into the log about 6 to 8 inches apart, working in rows, and 1 inch deep.  The bigger the log’s diameter, the more rows you will have.
• Place inoculated mushroom plugs into the drilled holes, which you can obtain from a supplier unless you make your own.
• Seal all the holes with the plugs in them using wax, either cheese or candle wax would be acceptable.  The purpose here is to protect the mycelium or spawn from insects and contaminants and to prevent it from drying out, effectively killing it as well.

Your log is now prepared.  From this point on, you will need to keep the log under favorable conditions to encourage the log to start fruiting.  The log should be kept in an area where it receives indirect light and should be kept moist.  Learning how to grow mushrooms can be a very rewarding experience.  Your log should fruit about every 5 to 7 weeks, enjoy the harvest!

This post via the: How To Grow Mushrooms blog where you can learn how to grow mushrooms at home, indoors or outdoors

If you’ve been attempting to grow your own mushrooms, you may have heard of or even used logs as growing mediums for your mushrooms.

Growing mushrooms on logs may require a little more knowledge in some areas compared to growing mushrooms using the more common soil and box methods.

To successfully grow mushrooms on logs you would need to know several things.

The first of these being, what species you intend to grow because not all species of mushrooms will grow on any medium you choose. Depending on the species you want, such as shiitake mushrooms, you would need a hardwood log or stump.

If you were planning to grow truffles, you would not be able to use a cut log, as truffles require a live tree and they grow near the base of a tree, not actually on it. And for mushrooms like chicken of the woods you would require softwood logs or stumps.

The preferred size (diameter) of the log or stump may also vary from species to species of the mushroom you want to grow so there is no definite answer. Also because you are growing mushrooms on a log or stump, there are different procedures to follow.

So before you try growing mushrooms on logs take some time to get to know your species and the methods to a successful harvest.

This post via the: How To Grow Mushrooms blog where you can learn how to grow mushrooms at home, indoors or outdoors

For many, the idea of growing mushrooms indoors rather than outdoors has an appeal.

One of the biggest reasons being it does not require you to do outside laboring and it enables better control of the growing environment such as temperature and humidity/moisture level.

For reasons like this, indoor mushroom growing is preferred to outside growing. One of these indoor methods is growing mushrooms in bags.

Assuming you know the basics of growing mushrooms already, we will skip ahead a bit. You will first need to have your bag of growing medium: wheat, rye, rice, soil, whatever it is you are using to grow your mushroom species. When you have the bag packed with the medium, you will need to throw in either a liquid spore mix or “cakes” which are usually bundles of sawdust or straw, fully colonized with mycelium.

At this point, shake the bag to mix around all the medium with your spores or cakes. You want to make sure everything is nicely distributed about as evenly as possible so break up the cakes into smaller pieces when mixing it. Once everything is mixed, just pack it tightly together by compressing it.

After everything is done, all that is left is to puncture the bag with holes to let it ventilate, and put the bag somewhere where it is cool and moist and maintain optimal conditions for growing your own mushrooms. Now you can sit back for a while and occasionally check in on the progress until your first flush of fresh mushrooms, enjoy!

This post via the: How To Grow Mushrooms blog where you can learn how to grow mushrooms at home, indoors or outdoors

Okay, so you’re starting to grow your own mushrooms and you want to know some things.

Here we will shortly cover one of the conditions to grow mushrooms, namely how much light if any, is needed to grow them.

Many people have thought that it is an absolute must to grow mushrooms in the dark. That is not true, nor is it completely false or without reason to believe so, however.

Mushrooms, unlike plants, do not contain chlorophyll and therefore do not have the ability to convert sunlight to food through the process known as photosynthesis.  Instead, they need to “leech” their nutrients from other sources, that’s where substrates such as soil, straw or logs come into play. So, with that said, this means mushrooms can grow just fine in the dark, but it does not mean that mushrooms cannot grow if exposed to sunlight.

There is a logical reason for people to grow mushrooms in the dark. Although mushrooms do not use light to produce food, they are in fact sensitive to it. They will grow towards the direction of light first of all.

Secondly when mushrooms sense the light, it tells them to start, what is called “pinning” or begin to form the fruiting bodies we have come to know as mushrooms. What this translates to in essence, is that you use light on your substrate to tell the mushrooms to start growing at a certain point when you feel it is right. It should also be mentioned that light is only one factor affecting mushrooms pinning. Other factors include the carbon dioxide levels and temperature. But you’ll come to know this through experience.

This post via the: How To Grow Mushrooms blog where you can learn how to grow mushrooms at home, indoors or outdoors

The type of growing medium for mushrooms varies with the mushroom species you are trying to grow.

While there are mushrooms that can grow on almost any medium, some will only grow on certain material.

A good example would be truffles. They are only known to grow in the soil underground and near the base of a tree.If you try you grow truffles on a log or stump, good luck. You’ll probably have passed before it grows.

For a species like oyster mushrooms, they can grow on a great variety of medium. Oyster mushrooms can grow on coffee grounds, sawdust, wood chips, logs, and even almost any kind of straw you can get your hands on. This pretty much categorizes oyster mushrooms as growing on woody material.

So before growing your own mushrooms, go do a little research on what growing medium suits your species. It is better to take a little time to get to know what medium helps your species grow best so you can have a successful harvest, rather than rushing only to later find out it isn’t going to work.

This post via the: How To Grow Mushrooms blog where you can learn how to grow mushrooms at home, indoors or outdoors

photo credit: timsamoff

So you love to drink coffee right?  Everyday you have one in the morning, and maybe another one or two down the road during the day to keep you energized, or maybe you just like its taste.  But after you’re done with your coffee you just end up throwing away all the used coffee grounds.  Why not use those coffee grounds for another purpose?  Yes, you could be growing mushrooms in coffee grounds.

The process of it is rather simple really.  You could be growing your own mushrooms simply by taking used coffee grounds and re purposing them.  After you have brewed your coffee for the day, the coffee grounds have already been steamed or boiled through so that already handles the sterilization/pasteurization, even though it is already clean before it is packed for us to use anyway.

The only thing required of you is to have the mushroom spawns or plugs ready.  You can either do this by making your own spawns or by getting them from a supplier.

Once you have your spawns, all that is needed is to mix the spawns with about a bucket or so of coffee grounds.  After that is done, you simply wait around until it starts to fruit, only making sure to keep the grounds moist by spraying now and then and keeping the mix in a relatively cool area, and that’s it.  Enjoy the fruits of your labor.

This post via the: How To Grow Mushrooms blog where you can learn how to grow mushrooms at home, indoors or outdoors

If you’ve been growing your own mushrooms from scratch then you know how troublesome and also how expensive sterilizing and/or pasteurizing substrate for your mushrooms can be.

Luckily for you, there is a method that can be used in growing your own mushrooms that can simplify and speed up the process.  This method is growing mushrooms with hydrogen peroxide

While using hydrogen peroxide has some limitations, it has obvious advantages.  The first being you would not need to sterilize your substrate for hours or days at a time if you instead add a low concentration of hydrogen peroxide to your mix.  This in turn means you do not require expensive pressure cookers and it also means the amount of substrate you can produce is not limited to any size, as would be the case if you used a pressure cooker (you can only make as much as it can hold).

Using hydrogen peroxide you are able to work in a non-sterile, non-laboratory like environment because hydrogen peroxide will help keep the mushroom cultures bacteria and contaminant-free.

The basic idea behind using a low concentration of hydrogen peroxide is that it helps promote healthy mushroom growth, while, at the same time, it keeps other possible fungi and contaminants from growing.  A low concentration of peroxide will not damage or hurt mushrooms.

Eventually the peroxide will be used by the mushrooms, turning it into nothing more than water and oxygen promoting a healthy growing environment.  So what are you waiting for?  Go grow your own mushrooms with the peroxide method.

This post via the: How To Grow Mushrooms blog where you can learn how to grow mushrooms at home, indoors or outdoors

photo credit: lipár

There’s nothing more relaxing than being at home growing mushrooms while you enjoy your Sunday afternoon.

One of the easiest ways to start growing edible gourmet mushrooms at home is to purchase a mushroom grow kit.

In order to grow properly, these kits – either boxes with specially prepared soil layers or sections of spore-treated logs – need a dark, relatively damp place to stay and will need to be sprayed with water every day or so (depending on the variety you buy, specific needs will vary).

Use the mushroom grow buddy to help you learn the different techniques for growing virtually any type mushroom.

Here’s a great website about all things outdoors:

• All Things Related To Outdoor Recreation – September 24, 2009 – Chris Mathew presents Grow Your Own Morel Mushrooms posted at How To Grow Mushrooms, saying, “Growing mushrooms can be easy, rewarding and fun. Learn how to grow mushrooms at home, indoors and outdoors.” …

This post via the: How To Grow Mushrooms blog where you can learn how to grow mushrooms at home, indoors or outdoors

Growing mushrooms from scratch is a long and difficult process. Make the task of growing mushrooms easy for yourself by learning all about how to grow mushrooms and/or buy a mushroom grow kit.

There are a lot of mushroom grow kits available on the market today and many of these can be used in your own backyard to create an outdoor mushroom garden.

With the kit comes the spores, nutrients and substrates. Typically, the mushrooms will begin fruiting within 1-2 weeks. Depending on the growing conditions, a single kit can produce 1-2 pounds of mushrooms per flush. With each kit, you can usually get 2-3 flushes until the nutrients and food supply is completely consumed

After following the kit’s instructions and with a little effort and time, you can begin growing and eating fresh gourmet mushrooms straight from your own backyard!

Here’s a great website about growing your own mushrooms with logs:

• Grow your own mushrooms – Grow your own mushrooms. By Patti Schiendelman | February 25, 2009. logs21. I have a small city yard, but I grow some of my own food – I have raspberries, a nice old Italian plum tree, a filbert hedge. Last year I had a great crop of …

This post via the: How To Grow Mushrooms blog where you can learn how to grow mushrooms at home, indoors or outdoors

Learning how to grow mushrooms can be easy, rewarding and not nearly as difficult as you might think.  Common mushrooms such as button , portabella and oyster mushrooms grow easily on compost in trays, bags, boxes or raised beds.
Four Easy Steps:
The basic steps for growing mushrooms:

• Making the compost. Raw materials for the compost are mixed together, moistened and composted.
• Spawning. The compost is put in trays, bags, boxes or raised beds, under cover, and then the spawn is added. Controlling the environmental conditions are important to achieve optimum growth of the spawn.  Over the next several weeks, the spawns will fill the compost with mycelia.
• Casing. Casing involves placing a layer on top of the compost, to bring about environmental conditions which encourage the formation of fruiting bodies (ie: The mushrooms which are eaten).
• Harvest.  After several weeks, the first crop is picked. Further crops occur every week or so (These are called flushes). After a month or two, the flushes decline and the compost should be discarded and the process started again.

If you want to grow a lot of mushrooms, learning how to grow mushrooms and how to protect and harvest them are important in a successful crop.

This post via the: How To Grow Mushrooms blog where you can learn how to grow mushrooms at home, indoors or outdoors