Grow your own mushrooms?

Has anyone here any used one of the grow your own mushroom kits? They look like a nice, simple and fun thing but how reliable are they I’m wondering? I’m considering getting one as a gift to a colleague for a Secret Santa.

Yep and it worked out quite well.

I mean expensive mushrooms but as a present with novelty value it was a decent buy and nothing went wrong.

for novel-ty I’ve grown oyster mushrooms in / on books before with a wee kit of spores (and instructions)  you put on the pages.

works quite well because you prompt the mushroom to put out fruiting bodies by putting it in the fridge (or freezer I forget which) and books are a better shape for that than a lump of wood

I got a cheapo kit from a garden centre years ago. Finally got round to using it and then forgot to water them so nothing happened. My wife took them over and they grew virtually overnight like … er, the proverbial.

Tried 2 kits and neither worked, I guess I’m just not a fungi……..

Have tried two kits, and nether worked.

When I was younger, there used to be a mushroom farm near my parents house. They would sell huge bags of manure/compost that would still produce mushrooms, but not at the commercial rate that they required before being replaced. 3 for £1. We would keep the bags in the dark, cool garage and would get about 5-10 Kgs of mushrooms over a few weeks before the yield stopped.

The mushroom farm is still there, but the bags are now classed as industrial waste and can not be sold to the public.

Conditions are critical. Just be sure to buy the right kind!
https://www.zamnesia.com/uk/94-magic-mushrooms/97-magic-mushroom-grow-kit

Recent headlines suggest it is easier if you live in social landlord housing.

Tried 2 kits and neither worked, I guess I’m just not a fungi……..

Maybe they didn’t have enough space?
Did you give them mush room?

Anecdotally I read that you don’t need to grow them in the dark, they just don’t require light.
They tend to be grown commercially in unlit sheds, simply because its a waste of electricity having the lights on other than when they are being tended to, so the people tending to them can see what they are doing.

The kits are nicer for gifts etc but really all you need is a sack of manure and some spores.

The only real trick of it is to not let the fruiting bodies drop spores onto the existing colony, as it can stop future fruiting (basically the spores will colonise if they land on ground that doesn’t already have fungus, but if they land on the existing fungus it can tell the colony not to bother fruiting on that section since it’ll not lead to any expansion.)

Mushrooms are cool and weird btw, the value of growing X mushrooms is really pretty small but it’s just interesting to do

I tried some in an upstairs airing cupboard. I must have added too much water because a couple of hours later mycelium fell in.

I was given a kit by an ex – i had expressed loads of interest in them. But, as someone who’s quite busy, and away a lot, I wasn’t able to keep up with the regularity of things to do with them (like, got to go in a bag at x weeks, for y number of weeks, or, mist daily for a week or two – I was away for weeks at a time).

I’m sure one could grow them without the rigidity that the instructions suggested, but I’m a bit funny with that kind of thing.

TLDR really interesting project and a cool gift, so long as the person you’re giving it to will be around enough to follow the instructions!

Thanks for the feedback folks,much appreciated. 👍🏼

mycelium gag 👍

Ahh memories… I thought they’d put a stop to all that. At uni we used to buy them from Camden market. Our shared house bathroom was full of the things.