How To Grow Mushrooms
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.