How To Use Our Mushroom Grow Kits At Home
All of the grow kits are bags of living mushroom mycelium (mushroom roots) that are ready to start growing immediately. If you are not ready to start the kit upon receiving it you can postpone fruiting/growing by storing it at refrigerator temperature for up to 7-10 days.
All you need to start growing this kit is a small spray bottle and a plastic tote and lid. The basics to growing any of our mushroom grow kits is to provide it with humidity and fresh air. Most varieties grow best between 60-75 degrees F.
The first step to starting your kit is to make a slice in the bag for the mushrooms to grow out of. The variety of mushroom you are growing will determine what opening you will make. Please see below.
Shiitake
Shiitake mushrooms produce a better yield if they receive a COLD shock prior to cutting open the bag. Store your kit in the refrigerator, basement, or depending on the weather outdoors for 24 hours. It just needs to be about 10-20 degrees cooler than average indoor air temperatures.
Shiitake also benefit from a PHYSICAL shock as well, hold your kit about 2 feet off the ground and drop it, letting it smack to the floor. Then make a 10 inch slit across the front of the bag, just underneath the filter. This exposes the block to the fresh air, but not too much! Shiitakes need to be very humid when they first start to form so keeping the bag on helps to keep in the humidity initially.
Place back into your humidity chamber and in about a week, once you see a number of small round dime sized formations pushing up against the bag - remove the bag entirely and place back into the humidity chamber.
Pick a spot!
Mushrooms do not require sunlight to grow and thrive best in 60-75 degrees Fahrenheit with 80% humidity. Choose a place in your home or yard out of direct sunlight. The basement, garage, bathroom, office, or laundry room... We’ve had customers tell us that they have put in the bathtub!
Pick the best location that will be conducive to maintaining your humidity level. To ensure that your kit is receiving enough humidity you want to make sure you can always see some condensation on the walls of your humidity chamber.
***Once mushrooms reach a certain maturity level they will start to release spores. This is part of their natural reproduction process. Some people are more sensitive to spores or may have an allergic reaction to them which usually presents as respiratory irritation/coughing. This is rare but good to keep in mind. For this reason you may consider growing your kit in a well ventilated area, a protected place outside, in the garage, basement, not a main living area or bedroom. Harvesting the mushrooms while they are young will also help reduce the amount of spores that are released.
Tender Love & Care
Mist and fan 2-3 times daily and mushroom pins will start forming from the opening within 1-2 weeks. Be sure to mist the walls of the tote and not the block directly. Pins should start to form on the top of the block within about 1-2 weeks. It is crucial to keep your grow kit humid at the very beginning, if the surface of the block gets too dry it is unlikely that the mushrooms will start to pin. Be diligent with your misting!
Just like us, mushrooms breathe in oxygen and release carbon dioxide. If there is too much Co2 the mushrooms cannot breathe and may not develop correctly. Higher Co2 usually results in longer stems and smaller caps because the mushrooms are growing upwards, like they would through the soil, searching for fresh oxygen and the right environment to fruit, mature, and release their spores.
Every time you go to mist your kit, use the lid of the tote to vigorously fan fresh air into the container. Co2 can pool at the bottom of the container and sometimes fanning by hand just isn’t enough. It’s a good idea to take the kit completely out of the container periodically and wave the container around or blow a fan directly into the tote for just a few minutes once a day. You can also set the container outside with the lid off for a few hours on overcast days, mornings, evenings, or shaded areas to really ensure proper ventilation.
Time to Harvest
The mushrooms should be ready to harvest in another 5-7 days. Each variety is a little different when reaching maturity and best time to pick:
Shiitake
Once the cap opens up and there is no longer a rim underneath. Use a scissors to cut the mushroom off of the block.
Troubleshooting
After your first harvest the block will produce a second, third, sometimes fourth flush but usually much smaller than the first. Keep the block in your humidity chamber and continue to mist daily to keep the humidity up. You should see a second flush within a few weeks. If you do not start to see the second pinset form in 1-2 weeks you can try letting your block rest for a week by stopping the humidity and then starting the process of misting and fanning again.
After the first/second/third flush you can compost your block or put it outdoors in a shady spot and check on it periodically as it will produce more mushrooms overtime.
Let us know if you have any questions along the way. And please share your pictures by sending them to us directly or tagging us on social media! Find us on Facebook and Instagram @mycophiles_garden. We love to see your success and would be happy to offer any advice if things don’t seem to be going quite right.
You can reach us at [email protected].
Best of luck!