Does anyone grow their own mushrooms?

[RotundRuby]

Eating variety not the hallucinogenic kind - although if I'm going to need to shell out for a load of kit, I wouldn't mind a bit of magic!

Past few years my DS has become very into the garden, sunflower growing during covid has really escalated. Already got his veg seedlings on the go for this year. I'm gearing up for 1001 ways with cherry tomatoes based on last summer's crop.

Today he's announced he wants to grow mushrooms, to be fair he does eat them. Google tells me I can buy a kit, seems like fun, will get a crop from a windowsill box. DS says this isn't the proper way not what REAL gardeners do. Does anyone grow masses of mushrooms? Please tell us where to start and give me your advice.

There's tutorials on YouTube. I've only grown the psilocybin ones.

Do you have space outside? You can do a lot with just a large plastic crate, with woodchip in it and covered in horticultural fleece. That sort of set up isn't expensive at all. I've grown wine cap mushrooms like that and they've done well, you just need to keep them a bit damp.

If you do grow them outside I'd recommend a variety like wine cap as they're really distinctive looking so easy to tell if a rogue poisonous mushroom was suddenly growing in there. Highly unlikely but I like to be sure 🤣

I have tried two kits - a box one and some pellet things to inoculate a log. In both cases I followed the very faffy instructions to the letter, and in both cases it was an utter failure. Not a single mushroom. I've given up - I don't think the kits are as simple as they claim (or alternatively I may be totally inept but I successfully garden and grow much fruit and veg otherwise so hopefully not)

Tried the kits indoors a couple of time , both times they have worked but not to the extent of having a useful amount at a time , normally each day we would have 3 or 4 ready to use .

Thanks. I don't think we will go for a kit then!

@ThreeRingCircus we definitely have outside space and a solid garden building if it gets too cold. I will look into wine cap. Where do you get the starting point from as they obviously don't come from seeds?