Growing Edible Mushrooms at Home: Where to Start

Whether you sandwich your hamburger patty with two toasted portobello mushrooms as an alternative to bread buns, or you sprinkle your stir fry with pan-fried shiitake mushrooms, mushrooms are a convenient way to add delicious flavor to any dish without packing on extra calories. 

As everyone knows, many varieties of mushrooms are safe and quite beneficial to your diet, but there are some humans should not consume. Get a refresher course on edible mushrooms (and how to find them in the wild) from the Learn Your Land YouTube channel.

With so many benefits, many people now choose to grow mushrooms at home instead of buying them at the store, where they’re often overpriced and prone to sogginess. To help you become one of these at-home-mushroom enthusiasts, learn the steps involved in growing mushrooms at home below.

Start growing your own edible mushrooms from home

Adding on to the myriad benefits of mushrooms is the fact that they’re incredibly easy to grow. As a beginner mushroom grower, the only materials you need to grow them are growing trays, heating pads, and cloth. 

With your growing trays, which should be at least 14×16 inches, filled with compost, start the growing process by sprinkling your mushroom spawn (the mushroom version of seeds) on top and covering them with approximately 1-inch of compost.

Then, place your trays on top of your heating pads, as mushrooms require a temperature of around 70°F during the first three weeks of their growth. After three weeks of growth, during which you should be lightly watering your mushrooms and covering them with a damp cloth, you then need to lower the temperature to somewhere between 55°F to 60°F for the final push.

When you see the caps of your mushrooms begin to open up, you’ve successfully completed your first batch! Harvest them with care by cutting them out of the compost. We hope after reading this you have learned how to grow edible mushrooms at home!