Growing Guides How to grow mushrooms

Date Published:

15/10/2007

Sowing whitecap mushrooms

Growing mushrooms reliably used to be very tricky, but pre-packaged kits have greatly simplified the process - you just spread the sterilised grain thickly over the enclosed container of compost and you're away.

Water the container well afterwards and keep it in a garage or a sheltered spot outdoors, moving it into the warmth in winter.

For your money you can expect two to three 'flushes' of mushrooms - producing up to 1kg (1–2lb) each time - before the food supply is spent.

If you then tip the contents on top of your compost heap, you can sometimes get an additional flush.

Planting log-growing mushrooms

If you're prepared to get hold of a hardwood log to keep in a damp, shady spot on your plot, it opens up numerous mushroom-growing possibilities. The two most common types that are grown this way are shiitake and oyster mushrooms.

The wooden dowels that you need to grow them at home are widely available through mail order. They are impregnated with mushroom spawn and all you need to do is drill holes in your log and push them in.

Your log should ideally be 30cm (1ft) or more in diameter - any narrower and it won't be able to sustain your crop for its full term - and freshly cut (certainly no more than six weeks should have elapsed since it was felled).

If you ever have a tree cut down in your garden, the mushrooms will be even more at home on a stump that is still rooted in the ground.

Normally you can get around 30 dowels into every 30cm (1ft) length of log. If the conditions are right, mushrooms can appear within several months and you can get an annual crop for the next five years.