Practical Mushroom Growing Tips for Beginners

Cultivating your own mushrooms can be challenging, but the rewards are worth it. Some people even get a kick out of the process of mushroom growing itself. Nothing can make you feel more like a lab rat. However, there are certain things you need to take note of before buying your own mushroom kits.

You must be committed to sterility

Unlike other fruits and vegetables, mushroom growing is more than just about digging up soil, putting the seedlings in, and allowing nature to take its course. You really need to go by the book when you grow mushrooms on your own, and this starts with being very clean. It is recommended that you wash yourself first before handling your kid. You need to keep your hair tied back and wear long sleeved shirts before handling your materials and ingredients. It is also recommended that you wear a facial mask to make sure that you don't contaminate the samples. One wrong move and you might be dealing with contaminated spores.

You must be ready with containers and storage spaces

If you are using the rice cake method, you need to be prepared with containers for your samples. Make sure these are sterile as you wouldn't want any other specimen to grow on your rice cakes. Some mushroom kits include these jars although you may still need to sterilize them beforehand. Some are already sterile and packed nicely in sealed plastic containers. Just make sure that you have right-sized jars so you can fit them nicely in your pressure cooker. As for the storage spaces, the ideal temperature for mushroom growing is 86 F. Depending on where you are in the world, you can either work with room temperature to produce this temperature, or put your cultures in a well-regulated space.

Allow some light and air for your mushrooms to grow

Your mushrooms will need to be exposed to light for about one or two hours a day, but make sure that the jars never get too hot. Natural light is ideal for growing mushrooms, but you can also just expose them to fluorescent light for better control. Your mushrooms also need air to grow because they are living specimens. Some beginners make the mistake of keeping their mushroom cultures in airtight spaces. Your spores will die if you do this. Allow a bit of air in your storage spaces. Just not too much that it would encourage contamination.

You need to be ready for quality control

You will be ingesting these mushrooms so it is necessary that you keep the quality of your cultures topnotch. In any case that you spot the growth of molds in any other color than white in your culture, throw the culture out. It is useless and would probably poison you if you try to eat it anyway. You're looking for white, stringy growth in about three weeks' time. Any other sign of growth in your jar can be a sign of harmful molds that could poison you.

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