Has anyone here ever done anything like growing their own mushrooms? I ask because I'm starting to become very curious about it... Before (when I was a new member here 15 years ago), I didn't know where to even start - As there was no possibility for me to get any mushroom spores. I could go out looking for them on my own, as they often grow here if it rains in September or October, (if the rainy Monsoon season goes beyond August, which is rare). But being a novice when it comes to mushrooms, I had no way to tell which would be edible. And which might be poisonous. So that's why I never tried. But that was in the past. Before online shopping platforms like AliBaba, AliExpess, TEMU, or Daraz even existed... Therefore now there's an entire world of online shopping available to me. So this has been a game changer for me in the last 5+ years. Another reason why I'm now seriously looking into mushroom cultivation is because they can be grown in a small controlled environment, (like you can convert a spare room in your house to grow them by the sack full). Also considering how unstable the world is becoming, with the geopolitical situation too fast deteriorating like never witnessed before - Is yet another season why I'll considering this. They will insure survival for a very long time, without taking much space. So now as I was browsing, I found these below.
@S-H This is really a huge subject, and it would be worth making sure you do enough research before you start on it. Many years ago I had a job working on a mushroom farm in Australia, but I only picked and packed them, and so the clever bit was left to the boss. Some of these mushrooms were grown in sheds with no windows, so it was really dark in those - lovely when the temperature was extremely high outside. Others were grown outside on mounds of soil underneath a massive covering of straw - one side applied first, and the other side put on overlapping the first. This system made it easier to remove the straw to collect the mushrooms and then re-cover them as progress was made. When I saw the picture of the honey fungus you posted - it gave me the shudders. Definitely don't sow those!
Slow down a bit S-H I too used to work on a mushroom farm. We only grew the Agaricus bisporus (button mushroom, or field mushroom) but we grew them by the thousands. They needed a double insulated tunnel with two 47kg LPG heaters on all the time and humidity of about 98% Even then we only got 2 to 3 pickings before the tunnels were infected by other fungus that destroyed the crop. Problem is that fungus spores are omnipresent in the atmosphere so if you create perfect conditions for one, then others will quickly find the place and grow there too. I'd ignore the more fanciful fungus that you showed and try some basic button mushrooms. If you can grow them outside then try some of the Oyster mushrooms too, they'll take a long time to produce but they taste lovely. Don't try to grow Oysters indoors as the other growers reported getting flu like symptoms from the spawn in the tunnels Some of the spawn you showed advertised don't really stand a chance of growing in cultivation, unless you're some sort of mycological expert. If we could grow Giant Puffball fungus they wouldn't be charging £25 a slice for it in restaurants. Morels might be worth a try if you've got access to wood chip, they sometimes come up in the bags you can buy from garden centres
Mushrooms over here are sometimes called saanp ki chatree (umbrella of a snake), because underneath it you could find a coiled baby snake avoiding rain - And as some old members here would remember, all snakes in my locality are highly poisonous, (I have never come across any snake wasn't a killer). So even though mushrooms are rare here, I still approach them with extreme caution... Reason why they are rare is because they mostly spawn in autumn season, (ehich is October and November for us). Since June till August is our only rainy season, (Monsoon), and no rain before or after - Means that we hardly ever see them. As for growing them, well, my idea was to not be too adventurous. At least not at first. Only grow those which are sighted in my environment... I actually got inspired after watching Jeremy Clarkson attempting to grow mushrooms on his farm. However later he also made a total mess of it all, as expected, (as since forever he's been habitual when it comes to ruining everything in the end). But that right there actually proved it to me! That if a colossal disaster of a man like Jeremy Clarkson can do it, means that the bar is now set pretty low. Therefore anybody with even half a functioning brain should be able to do it easily. So the more I dug, the more interesting it all got. And of course, my own disaster prepping nature too kept urging me to explore more.
I tried a few times with kits. Got a crop of the pink oyster type. Really tasty, but costly for one crop. I did mushroom plugs in logs, oyster and chicken of the woods - they didn't grow.
I am not a biologist, never even had any interest in it, (aside from growing plants and trees) - However I do know that there's nothing I can't do if I put my mind to it - So the first step I guess would be to locate a source of agar, which is the biological growth medium, (made from seaweed)... I have never tried this, so I'll be jumping into it totally blind - With just Google, YouTube, and DeepSeek AI as my guides. Since agar was never available to me, is perhaps I never went into biology. Instead I picked another branch of since and engineering. So about time I corrected this oversight from my misspent teens. So finally, agar I can now get from an online source. Don't know why I couldn't get this before my entire life. But I'll talk about a lifetime wasted at some other opportunity. What else is now left to do? Information is out there for anyone to look up, and so are the tools and equipment now easily available. So will I go ahead with this? I don't know, most probably yes, but not right away. As this requires dedication... So I'll need to make some time for such a project and plan everything methodically. But for anyone else who would like to give it a try, most of the information is now collected here in this thread. This online availability of stuff I believe is now going to make me lazy. As all my life I was always making my own stuff. Partly because nothing was available to me, neither in retail stores nor online. But also because I knew I could do a better job...
Good luck with your mushroom growing @S-H. That whole Agar thing boggles my mind !! . Too much fuss and bother for me !!
Well I'm only preparing for a time, when there'll be radioactive fallout everywhere outside. So surviving on mushrooms grown indoors, will be my only option - A few years after which, I'll emerge as the new king of the world! And conquer everything in sight without much resistance... History shall record, that it all started from right here at GardenStew!
Just for fun, I located all the equipment we'd need to do this type of cultivation of mushrooms successfully and professionally at home, (petri dishes and other basic stuff like an isolated greenhouse like chamber I already covered in this thread before). This is all 100% doable, if someone is obsessed and/or passionate enough about doing this - I'm actually a bit astonished at how easily it is to source all this equipment nowadays, (thanks to online stores and using AI as a guide). And that too without breaking the bank! This is also what we'd need if we go for plant propagation by tissue culture...
