How to Grow Mushrooms at Home: Oysters are KING (2024)

Want to learn how to grow mushrooms at home, including tasty oyster mushrooms? Read on!

Growing mushrooms at home can be a rewarding, fun experiment, as well as a fruitful way of producing food from an otherwise under-utilized resource. If you are interested in how to grow mushrooms at home, start by considering some of the common household waste that can be used to grow mushrooms, like:

• Cardboard
• Coffee grounds
• Toilet paper
• Leaves and grass clippings
• Wood chips and logs
• Straw
• Egg cartons

One of the easiest methods to start growing mushrooms at home is to grow oyster mushrooms on coffee grounds. This is an easy 4 step process.

You will need a plastic container with a lid and several holes poked in the bottom of the container, oyster mushroom spawn, and a household of coffee drinkers.

1. Brew coffee. Once boiling water has run through the grounds and filter place into a small plastic bucket/container.
2. Add spawn on top of the freshly brewed coffee and filter. Close the lid.
3. Repeat daily or throughout the day, layering oyster mushroom spawn and spent coffee grounds. Keep the mushroom spawn in the fridge between use.
4. Once the container is full, allow it to sit for 2-3 weeks. Poke 4-5 holes in the side of the container and mist once daily. Mushrooms will begin fruiting within a week of misting.

How to grow mushrooms at home with straw

Another substrate that is great to cultivate oyster mushrooms on is straw. It is easy to use this method for growing mushrooms at home. You will need clean straw, a 5-gallon bucket, water, plastic tubing, and oyster mushroom mycelium. This method of treating straw is called the STINKY STRAW METHOD. It is likely the smelliest way to grow mushrooms at home. Don't worry though, the smell is very temporary — dissipating from the straw within 30 minutes of removing it from the fermentation.

1. If possible, shred the straw into 1-4 inch pieces, this can be achieved by machete, running over the straw with a lawn mower, a small yard shredder/chipper, or a weed whacker in a 55-gallon barrel.
2. Pack the straw into a 5-gallon bucket. Place a large cinder block or other heavy object to keep the straw submerged in water. Fill the bucket with water so the straw is completelysubmerged.
3. Allow to remain submerged for 3-6 days. Remove from water and drain on a table.
4. Pack the straw into plastic tubing, layering oyster sawdust spawn every 3 or 4 inches. It is very important to pack the straw as tight as possible so there are minimal air gaps. For a 3-foot tall section of tubing you should poke 18 holes in the side of the plastic.
5. Allow the mycelium to colonize the straw for 3-5 weeks. The bag can be kept in a dark place between 50-80 degrees F.
6. Move the bag into fruiting conditions. In an ideal environment this is 65 degrees F, out of direct sunlight but in a lighted area like a living room, with humidity around 85%. To achieve this, simply mist the exterior of the bag 2-3 timesdaily.
7. The mushrooms will fruit out the holes of the bag within 7-10 days. Harvest once they reach maturity.
8. Allow the bag to rest where it is for 2 weeks and begin misting again. The bag will fruit mushrooms 2-4 times before it is time to be composted.

How to grow mushrooms at home: Growing oyster mushrooms

Sometimes when people ask how to grow mushrooms at home they really only want to grow mycelium. Growing mycelium can be a great way to build organic matter instead of sending waste to a landfill. Rather than recycling cardboard, mycelium of Wine cap or oyster mushrooms can be grown out and transferred to additional pieces of cardboard. Organic matter can be greatly increased by adding this into a compost pile, or even using it to sheet mulch a garden. The spent straw from the stinky straw method is great to compost or add to the garden as well.

How to grow mushrooms at home: A couple oyster mushroom strains I like for growing mushrooms at home

Here are two blue oyster mushroom strains we have liked to use because of their high yields, fast mycelium colonization, and the beautiful fruited body that is produced. Blue Oyster Amycel 3015 fits the above description as it is high-yielding with fast mycelial growth. This strain will fruit in a wide range of temperatures between 50 degrees Fahrenheit and 75 degrees Fahrenheit, which is good for home growers that have movement in the environment’s temperature. The fruiting clusters are large with large caps that range in color from blue to white, depending on the temperature they are grown in and the stage at which they were harvested.

Blue Oyster Lambert 123 is similar to the above Blue Oyster Amycel 3015, as it displays high yields and fast mycelial growth as well. The mushrooms from this strain are better and yield best when fruited at temperatures between 50 degrees Fahrenheit and 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The mushroom clusters are small and dense, which can make packaging easier. If you are interested in these strains, you can buy them from us! I hope this article was helpful for those interested in how to grow mushrooms at home. If you have further questions or comments, don't hesitate to ask. And please share this information with those mycophile friends of yours!

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