A Step by Step Guide to Mushroom Growing
Mushroom growing is very easy if you know exactly what you’re doing, and it’s not difficult to learn the different steps involved in the process. Now, the basics of preparing growth medium and containers has been covered elsewhere, but the actual basics of how to plant and care for mushrooms will be covered in detail in the course of this article.
You will most likely buy mushroom spores or spawn when you first learn to grow mushrooms, and before you learn to harvest the spores from mushroom caps for yourself. Now, there are two types of this spawn available. It is available in flakes, but it is also available in bricks as well. How you plant the spores or spawn depends on what sort that you buy. I would suggest, if you’re thinking of planting mushrooms regularly, that you buy and plant both types, and see what works better for you.
If you buy and plant both types, there are very different methods of planting them. The bricks need to be broken into chunks, each about one inch in diameter. These chunks are put into the growing medium, spaced about half a food from each other. You need to make holes about an inch or two deep before you put these chunks in. Flakes are mixed right into the growth medium. Take about a quart of these flakes and spread them over fifteen square feet, and continue until you have the growth medium evenly covered. You need to mix these into the growth medium while doing this.
Make sure that the flakes are not visible on the surface of the growth medium. Whether you use chunks or flakes, the next steps to mushroom growing are the same. You spray a mist of water on to the mixture regularly, and keep it in the dark. Soon the mushroom spawn will begin to put out mycelia, which are the fungal version of roots. Once these are out, the mushrooms will really start to grow. As a matter of fact, in time you will see an intricate web of these pale white mycelia form.
Slightly increasing the temperature to about sixty five degrees Fahrenheit in this time will encourage growth. Remember to water daily. In a few weeks you should be able to see the mushrooms. You should not water in the period between when the mushrooms appear and the harvest. You can harvest mushrooms when they are either very small, or when they mature. Just use a sharp knife to harvest each mature mushroom, and there’ll soon be another mushroom growing in its place.
