Making the right growth medium needed for mushroom growing

Making the right growth medium needed for mushroom growing

Most people who go in for mushroom growing just go out and buy both the spores (or spawn) and the growth medium. 

They do this because this is the easiest way to grow mushrooms. 

But if you are thinking of growing mushrooms commercially, this can add massively to your costs. 

Or at least, it can add to your costs to an unacceptable extent. 

If this is the problem you're facing, this article will tell you how to cut down on those costs by making the growth medium yourself. 

It's not as hard as you think, and can go a long way towards making you a master of growing mushrooms.

Of course, no matter of knowledge is going to help you unless you have space in which to grow your mushrooms, so that's something that you need to think about well in advance. 

If you're thinking about mushroom growing on a commercial scale, you need to wonder where you'll put all those happily-growing and healthy mushrooms. 

Because it's possible to grow enough mushrooms for the occasional mushroom dinner right in the house, but if you want to go commercial, well, you're going to need a greenhouse area at least.

If you have the area, the next thing you're going to have to think of are planting containers. 

Remember that mushrooms are not plants, and they don't need a deep container in which to grow. Instead think large and flat, containers that are more shallow pans than real pots. 

Most stores that specialize in gardening supplies should be able to accommodate you. Once you've got everything arranged, the best thing you could do would be to begin with one pan. 

And this is about the time you need to prepare your mushroom growth medium.

It's easy to put together - you need cow or horse manure and straw. Mix them well in a shallow tub with holes in the bottom so that water can run off. You need to mix straw well into this. 

Add gypsum to the mix as you go about the mixing process. Now cover it with a sack and store it for a while. 

After some time mix the pile again and cover it again. Repeat this several times. Finally, your mixture should be ready, and you can go ahead and empty it into your boxes.

Then plant the mushroom spores in the mixture and cover it with more of the mixture, and you'll soon have your first mushroom growing.

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Just how easy is growing mushrooms?

Just how easy is growing mushrooms?

Is mushroom growing as easy as it's made out to be? The answer is yes.

This is because mushrooms are actually fairly simple organisms that require a very specific set of environmental conditions in which to grow. 

If they don't have this set of conditions, they don't grow. On the other hand, the good news is that if they do have that set of conditions, they grow almost without any maintenance at all. 

Another bit of good news is that these conditions are easy to provide. All you really need to grow mushrooms is dark and humidity.

You can provide dark by simply having an enclosed space, and humidity can be provided for by spraying the growing medium in which the mushrooms are planted with a water spray twice a day. 

Mushrooms are very productive, and you'll have a new harvest of mushrooms starting to grow even as you take out the grown ones. 

And they're very nutritious, and well worth the little effort it takes to grow them. If you're growing them just to provide the occasional mushroom meal for your family, you needn't bother to take too much trouble or effort over them.

Simply walk into your local gardening store and buy a complete mushroom kit. They are also available online, at even more competitive prices, and if you buy these kits online they'll be delivered right to your doorstep. 

These kits really make mushroom growing easy, because they contain just about everything that a person needs to get started. 

They usually come in a closed container that can be put up just about anywhere in the house that has the right temperature range. 

The container itself provides the mushrooms with dark, so you don't have to worry about that aspect of things.

The container will also contain mushroom spawn and a growth medium, and all that you actually have to do with this system is to spray the growth medium regularly - surely not much of a task. 

You see how, with a mushroom kit, your mushrooms are virtually guaranteed. 

If you feel up to the task at some later time, you can try growing mushrooms on a larger scale, perhaps in a shed in the garden or in an outhouse. 

But if you're just starting up and want to get the hang of the very basics of mushroom growing, then one of these starter kits is really your best bet.

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Just how does one go about mushroom growing

Just how does one go about mushroom growing

That's an interesting question indeed, and you may well be stumped by it even if you happen to be an excellent gardener. 

Even if you've had your own well-kept lawns and garden for years, you may still find mushroom growing difficult, because the simple fact of the matter is that mushroom growing is a whole new ball game.

But why is this so? It's because mushrooms are not really plants, but fungi, and this changes all the rules. 

You can't use mud to grow them in, for one thing. The usual fertilizers and pesticides won't work - not that you'll want to use them if you're set on growing organic mushrooms for consumption. 

Anyway, the point that I want to make is that there are a lot of new things to learn, and the sooner you can get started learning them, the better you'll ultimately be at either providing your family with a regular mushroom diet, or at growing them commercially for sale.

Now, the first parameter when you're growing anything (not just mushrooms), is space. 

If you're just growing enough for the occasional mushroom meal for your family, then you could even grow mushrooms indoors, inside your house. But if you want to grow them on a larger scale, you're going to have to have a garden shed, at the very least. 

A greenhouse or a small barn would be even better. One nice thing about growing mushrooms is that you can use your space very efficiently. 

Simply fill the available space with shelving, with the shelves about a foot apart, and with space for you to move around (or in-between) the shelves, of course. 

After this it's a simple matter of acquiring a great many flat trays (each about three to four inches deep) and placing them on the shelves.

You may wonder how it's possible to grow mushrooms this way, and I'll remind you that these fungi don't need the presence of light in which to grow, and so can be grown in this way most efficiently. 

Then you need to buy some commercial mushroom growing medium, or you can make your own (it's not difficult) and fill the trays with it. 

Plant the mushroom 'seed' - the correct term to use here is spores or spawn, and not seed - and you'll have your mushrooms growing in no time at all. 

While this is a very cost effective approach, there are ways to make mushroom growing even more cost-effective by harvesting spores, but that's a subject for a separate article.

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How to use a greenhouse for mushroom growing

How to use a greenhouse for mushroom growing

Everyone knows that mushroom growing needs a dark, moist area. 

But many people don't realize that one can actually arrange an area that is sufficiently moist and dark in one's own greenhouse. 

The fact that people don't realize that they can potentially grow mushrooms right in their own greenhouse means that they often don't use this optimal place, even when they have it at their disposal.

It's true that a greenhouse may not seem like an optimal location in which to go about your mushroom growing at first sight. But this is a fallacy. 

A green house can easily be adapted to the task of growing mushrooms and doing so can involve something as simple as covering the greenhouse with a canopy of plastic. 

So long as you screen out the light your mushrooms should do perfectly well. 

Another thing that you're going to have to see to if you want to grow mushrooms in your greenhouse is ensuring that temperatures remain stable.

Mushrooms don't like too much of a variation in temperature and so this is something that you must try to avoid. 

If you can keep the temperature above around fifty degrees F and below sixty degrees F or so, your mushrooms should do just fine.

Now, another thing that you need to know about mushrooms is that if you want them to grow reasonably well, or indeed even to grow at all, you can't begin by planting them in mud. 

This is because fungi, which is what mushrooms are, don't grow in soil. 

Their organism is essentially made up of quite different materials from those of plants, and this means that mushrooms will refuse to grow unless planted in a medium that is rich in nitrogen. 

Such a medium is called a growth medium, and it can either be produced yourself with some effort, or can be bought in a store. If you intend to create the growth medium yourself, bear in mind that this can take some effort and is hardly worthwhile unless you intend growing a fairly large quantity of edible mushrooms.

On the other hand, for those in the initial stages of mushroom growing or those without much experience I would recommend a readymade growth medium. 

This will be more than adequate to your needs until you gain more experience, or alternatively, wish to expand productivity. 

At that stage, you can always begin producing your own growth medium to reduce the costs of your mushroom growing.

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How to make sure your mushroom growing doesn't get derail

How to make sure your mushroom growing doesn't get derail

The key to successful mushroom growing is really the environment that you maintain, and the nutrient mix that you use. 

Mushrooms are not organisms that adapt well to a variable environment, so if you want to grow mushrooms, you're going to have to ensure that the environment that you grow them in remains stable.

The first aspect that you need to concentrate upon is light. While mushrooms can survive a small quantity of light, what they really love is darkness, so you're going to have to maintain a dark environment if you want your mushrooms to grow. 

On a small scale, this sort of darkness can be maintained just about anywhere. 

You could even grow mushrooms in a closed box mounted on a wall, right in your own home.

However, large scale growing had best not be done inside the house; this is because the nutrient mix used for mushrooms is so rich that it can encourage the growth of all sorts of pathogens. 

Growing mushrooms on a large scale inside the house could flood your house with these pathogens, and lead to infections and respiratory diseases. However, it's perfectly save to grow mushrooms inside the house on a very small scale.

If you have space in your garden shed, and if it doesn't suffer from draughts, it can do just fine for growing mushrooms. 

If you have a greenhouse available, you could use it for your mushroom growing, so long as you take the trouble to build a darkened enclosure for the mushrooms, or screen the glass panes of the greenhouse in some way. 

And of course, if you have a barn, that would be perfect.

Wherever you grow them, remember that your mushrooms need stable temperatures, and maintaining those temperatures can be absolutely crucial.

If the temperature range were to rise or fall more than five degrees above or below fifty five degrees Fahrenheit for any length of time, you can be sure that your mushrooms will die.

For the same reason, draughts are absolutely fatal to mushrooms, because they usually include a drastic rise or fall in temperature, and this is what kills off mushrooms. 

The good news is, however, that if you manage to maintain the environment, and let's face it, it isn't that hard to do, mushroom growing can be pretty effortless. 

So long as you get the environment right, you can be assured that your mushrooms will give you little or no trouble.

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How to go about expanding on your mushroom growing

How to go about expanding on your mushroom growing

Most things these days have been made exceedingly simple and mushroom growing is not an exception.

There are mushroom growing kits that will have you growing mushrooms within an hour after the kit arise. 

However, relying upon somebody else's expertise (and that is what you do when you buy a kit), can only get you so far. 

When you buy a kit, and rely upon someone else's expertise, you also obviously have to pay for that expertise, and this can send your costs up to unacceptable levels.

The simple fact is that if you want to grow mushrooms on anything but the smallest scale, you're going to have to learn the details of mushroom growing yourself.

It's the only way to cut costs. If you pay for a kit every time, you may end up paying as much for your mushrooms as you would pay in a store anyway. 

Of course, the mushrooms that you grow in your kit are more organic, so if your aim in growing mushrooms is merely to assure yourself of a supply of organic mushrooms, obtained at the least possible trouble, then a kit may indeed be the best choice.

But if cost matters to you, as it matters to most of us, then learning to do at least some of the tasks involved in mushroom growing is in your best interests. 

Let's not go for complete independence right away, but instead learn of some ways to cut costs that will still keep the task of mushroom growing fairly simple.

One of the first things you need to do is to stop relying upon kits that provide you with everything. Culture a little independence in yourself. 

Start by choosing an area of your property that you think will be good for growing mushrooms. 

A greenhouse, properly modified for darkness, can be excellent, but a garden shed can do just as well, albeit on a smaller scale. 

Now visit your local gardening store and pick up some flat boxes. These will do very well for planting trays. You can buy mushroom growing medium at this stage. 

After all, these are only your first steps towards complete independence.

Another thing you can think of buying are the mushroom spores themselves. 

These are called spawn when they're processed, and they're pretty freely available. 

If you put these three components together, you can have a medium sized mushroom growing setup operational in a very short time, and at a fraction of the cost of buying complete kits.

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How to ensure that your mushroom growing is successful

How to ensure that your mushroom growing is successful

A good many people think that mushroom growing must be something that is very difficult to do, and this is actually quite a serious misconception.

Because the fact is that while growing mushrooms may not necessarily be easy, it's not really all that difficult either, at least if you know what you're doing.

If you're here reading this article, you already realize that the internet is a wonderful resource and you can use it to learn the subtle skill that is mushroom growing. 

Once you know the basics you can go on to become an expert mushroom grower.

These days, even if something isn't easy, it can be made easy by the large amount of 'do-it-yourself' companies out there. 

With the prices of commercial goods rising, and increasing amount of companies base their products around the concept of 'do it yourself'. 

There are do it yourself laptop kits and do it yourself solar panel kits, and yes, mushroom growing isn't an exception, because there are some wonderful do it yourself kits out there, and buying one of these kits would be an excellent step towards learning mushroom growing.

I would suggest that you go for the smallest kits. This is because these small kits are usually self-contained, and contain everything that you can possibly need to grow mushrooms, and this includes a container to provide the growing mushrooms with humidity and darkness. 

This container can be kept anywhere in the house, or even mounted upon a wall. You will also get a supply of growth medium with the kit and a supply of what is known as spawn, which is, to put it more simply, a collection of mushroom spores, that give rise to new mushrooms.

There will be clear instructions on how to put things together, of course, but that's a simple job. 

And once you do, all it takes to ensure that the mushrooms grow is to water the growth medium regularly. 

Clear instructions on when and how to do this will also be provided with the kit, and you just have to follow them. 

Of course this is just a humble beginning - pretty soon you'll want to expand, and can then by supplies of growth medium and spawn at a local gardening store to set things up on a larger scale. 

That's all that it really takes to learn mushroom growing.

Ultimately you can even make your own growth medium and culture your own mushroom spawn to lower expenditure in your mushroom growing.

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How mushroom growing can benefit the health of your entire family

How mushroom growing can benefit the health of your entire family

Mushroom growing may be more important to the health of your family than you may think. 

Our society is so heavily industrialized these days that the industrialization extends even to our food sources. 

That being that case, we find that a great many companies involved in industrial food production are concerned more with maximizing yields, rather than about the nutritive value of the foods that they are producing. 

So many crops are taken from a single area of land that the nutritive value of the food grown on that land can become seriously reduced.

There is also an indiscriminate use of pesticides and fertilizers in commercial mushroom growing,

so much so that there is a positive long term threat to the health of your family inherent in these practices. 

One way to counter this is to grow your own food. While growing fruits and vegetables can be relatively easy, providing for good sources of protein can be much more difficult, especially if you don't want to keep animals, or are a vegetarian.

That's exactly where growing mushrooms comes in. 

Mushrooms are an excellent source of protein, and they can be grown fairly effortlessly, providing you with a reliable source of organic protein for your family. 

You might think that growing them is bound to be difficult, but if you learn a little more about the subject, you'll understand just how easy and simple it is to grow mushrooms.

For those who are mainly interested in a source of organic protein, one of the many kits on the market provide an easy and fairly effortless approach to growing mushrooms that can let you get started on growing them virtually right away.

A kit of this sort is also a very good way of learning the basics of growing this wonderful food without too much risk of lost effort or failure. 

Once you gain in confidence after using these kits, you can go on to creating your own containers, making your own growth medium, and perhaps even harvesting spores from grown mushrooms to start a new generation of mushrooms. All this will come with time.

Don't be impatient, and focus upon your successes in growing organic food rather than upon costs in the beginning. 

Your costs will gradually reduce in time as you become more experienced, and your operation becomes consequently more efficient. 

As you gain experience and lower costs, you could conceivably even go commercial with your mushroom growing, selling your produce to stores or in the open market.

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How long does mushroom growing take?

How long does mushroom growing take?

Just how much time should it take you to harvest mushrooms from your mushroom growing. 

Well, if you like large mushrooms, these can take up to three months to mature fully. 

This means that if you want to have a mushroom meal regularly, you're going to have to use a little strategy. 

The first strategy, of course, is to plant a great many mushrooms. 

The second strategy is to plant the spore or spawn in different areas of your mushroom beds at different times. 

Since the mushrooms in your mushroom beds will be sprouting and maturing at different times, you can be assured of a supply of mushrooms all through the month.

When you first plant your mushrooms, whether you use spores or the more manageable spawn that is sold these days, 

you're going to have to keep your mushroom beds wet for a about three weeks, and the temperatures stable around about fifty five degrees Fahrenheit or so. 

This stable temperature and the moisture is what encourages the mushrooms to bud. After about two weeks or so, you'll see a delicate white net meshed over the growth medium. 

This net consists of mycelia, and is the root system that each mushroom growing puts out, though the mushrooms themselves will not be in evidence yet.

Nevertheless, nutrients are moving inwards, and the spores are growing into budding mushrooms, which will become visible to you about three weeks from planting the spores or spawn. 

Of course these mushrooms will be too small to consume, but once they appear, the growing process is well on track. 

Then it's only a question of keeping them growing. To do this, you need to keep out all draughts, and also cut down on the moisture a little. 

Watering the mushroom beds is all important in the first stages, and this needs to be done at least twice a day, but once the mushrooms actually start to appear, this can be cut down to misting once or twice daily.

The mushrooms will take their nutrients directly from the nutrient-rich growth medium, and only need some gentle misting to prevent them from drying out. 

And that's all that you really need to do, to maintain the environment, and your mushrooms will grow. Keep the temperature in a steady range, don't let light touch your mushrooms, and keep out the draughts. 

As you can see, mushroom growing can be so simple.

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Growing mushrooms successfully enough to share with your friends and acquaintances

Growing mushrooms successfully enough to share with your friends and acquaintances

Mushroom growing on a small scale is relatively easy, as everyone knows. 

All you need is a little growth medium and some spores, and the mushrooms virtually grow themselves. 
These days you even have kits which allow you to grow mushrooms even more easily.

These kits provide you with everything that you could possibly need, and all you need to do is to water the mushrooms regularly and make sure they don't dry up. 

However, this sort of mushroom growing will provide the occasional mushroom meal for your family, but nothing more than that. 

If you want to grow enough mushrooms to share with your friends and acquaintances, you're going to have to go one better than this. 

You'll have to take a little trouble and prepare the containers for growing the mushrooms, and perhaps even the growth medium, yourself. 

However, if you succeed at this, you might even be able to go on to grow mushrooms commercially, or at least enough to sell them locally.

Now the first thing you need when you're considering growing mushrooms on a larger scale is space. After all, you can't grow anything unless you have the space to plant it in. 

You'll need some kind of garden shed or outhouse at the very least, but if you have this, growing mushrooms on a medium to large scale should be fairly easy.

Let's start with growing mushrooms on a medium scale first. The ideal growth container for mushrooms on this scale is a log or a thick piece of wood. 

Yes, mushrooms aren't plants, and they require very different conditions from plants to be grown successfully. For one thing, they do not use soil, nor are they usually grown in a flower pot. 

Instead, if you want to grow mushrooms on a medium scale, you would be well advised to get yourself a log. If you ever walked in a forest, you may have noticed how much mushrooms like logs.

If you get your mushrooms a large piece of wood, they will grow in it only too happily. You'll have to make a few minor modifications to the wood, like making some holes in its surface. 

The mushrooms spores, of course, go right into these holes. Plaster a little growth mixture on top and water it regularly and you should have mushrooms growing in just a little while. 

After that mushroom growing is only a question of watering them regularly before you can start harvesting them on a regular basis.

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