Since buying our house in Wyoming four years ago, I've progressively taken advantage of our little backyard, converting the lawn into a veggie patch. As years went by, my gardening was complemented with various composting techniques such as hot composting horse manure, composting kitchen organic waste with compost worms and black soldier fly larvae. All this is not just for environmental concerns but also about bringing to our table the freshest and quality food as we have control over what we feed the plants with. It's not always cheap, especially when you just start and have to buy all sort of material to start your garden, but long term you will see the benefits and most of the food tastes so much better.
Growing button mushrooms at home
A few weeks ago, my family was in Aldi when I spotted an "All-in-one Button Mushroom Growing Kit" for just a few dollars. I thought this would be a nice intro to growing mushrooms at home.
The instructions seemed fairly easy to follow:
- Open the box and wait until the compost is covered with a white fluffy layer
- Open the cover bag from around the compost and cover it with the provided casing (peat moss)
- Spray water on daily basis to keep it moist but not wet
- You will get some mushrooms in about two weeks time.
Nothing to loose, I thought to myself. So there I went and set up the kit in a cupboard in the laundry room. Out of sight, out of mind. I forgot about the box and rushed to it two weeks later, lol. Luckily it was fine and covered with a nice white and fluffy layer of Mycelium all over the surface of the compost. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of it, so here is a photo I've found on Makery:
After a couple of weeks, I could see white little stuffs breaking off the surface of the casing. Then it only took a day for them to visibly grow.
I should have picked them out just right then but we already had some food and I've been donated some mushrooms by some members of the Permaculture Central Coast club when I gave the club members a talk on composting with black soldier fly larvae.
So after forgetting about them mushrooms for few more days (again), I went back and checked them today and saw they have grown much larger and some of them have started to die off... But still good I guess, I just need to cut away the damaged bits.
So I harvested the button mushrooms and also noticed some more will be coming out very soon. This is today's little harvest:
I've cut the bottom and dry cleaned the mushrooms. We'll be washing them just right before cooking them.
I'm looking forward to tasting these this evening.
Maybe the next step for me is to learn how to grow mushrooms without buying a ready-made kit, but create my own compost and spreading the spores myself.
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Love mushroom kits and mushrooms XD We get them every now and then, haven't got up to the stage of making a patch.
What did you make with them?
These don’t need a patch. You grow them straight in the box they are sold in. Easy lazy lol.
That is cool!! Was it hard to wash all the dirt off though?
I havent washed it off yet. I kept it dry and wash it last minute. And it is only clean peat moss so no biggies. I think it can either be washed out or brushed out. I will update you after we start cooking it
Ok, also let me know how it compares to store bought ones after you eat it.
So, I might be biased or imagining it but it does have more flavour and scent, some sweetness to it. Will have to test them side by side to be certain. But so far, it’s yum
hahaha Thanks for the updates. I was about to say you should test them side by side; or even better, have a blind taste testing!
Have your wife cut them up and place them on a plate marked A and B; then you taste and rank them via different categories; freshness, flavour, texture, sweetness etc. Or if you can; get more samples to avoid you guessing which is which to avoid and bias opinions lol
First update, it's easy to clean off. Just rinse under the tap and gently brush with your fingers.
Oh man this is amazing! Im so glad you are here with us in our discord group! Please keep sharing this great stuff! Have you ever heard of korean natural farming?
Hey thanks for visiting 😊
Yes I do know about KNF. I’ve started making FAA (Fish Amino Acid) from their technique. Might give a try at making IMO too at some point.
IMO 1-5 is the most important process!
My backyard is tiny, I kinda find it too much effort for what I do. Instead of making IMO, what I did was amending the garden soil with a lot of leaves, hot composted manure and collecting the IMO from local forests but instead of making IMO1-5 etc... I just inoculate the prepared garden. I can see the mycelium everywhere now.
Will try it though when time allows
Its my favoriate aspect ofthe knf world... Its the rock n roll of microbes wheres as knf is a symphony
Never heard of jms. Tell me more about it plz
Have you heard of jadam microbial solution or jms?
You can make side dish using those mushrooms. What I do is sauté the mushrooms in butter, then add diced carrots, green peas and corn kernels. Then add thickened cream to make sauce. Put salt and pepper to taste. If the sauce is runny, dissolve one tbsp of cornflour and mix it with the rest to thicken the sauce. Serve with mashed potato and medium-rare ribeye fillet steak. Yum!!!!
Arg! Stop! You are making me hungry 😋 haha.
You can also do some Thai tom yum soup.
Or french style “escalope de veau à la crème”, Veal scallops with cream and mushrooms, which also works nicely with a steak.
Yes, I will definitely try that. Thanks! I love cooking for my husband (when I am not feeling too lazy). He does not complain and always compliments my cooking.
What a wonderful harvest @quochuy Those mushrooms look delicious. Can't beat home grown veggies.
Hello :-D
Thank you for browsing by
They were quite nice tasting indeed. It's an amazing feeling to be able to eat food you grow yourself.
This post has been featured in the @offgrid-online Weekly Curation. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience with growing mushrooms at home.