With the white button mushrooms now 18 days old, it is time to show you what is happening.  I prepared them on the 13th April 2014.

Today, I had to move the mushroom box into the greenhouse as it was just too cold where I had it located at the corner of the deck.  It has been getting down to 10°C (50°F) during the night, which is outside the recommended range of 15-20°C.  Mind you, now that autumn has really kicked in, it is not much warmer during the day.

I figured that the bottom of the greenhouse was a better place to be, and I would be able to check on it when I close the greenhouse up at night.  As you can see, I have it wrapped in a blanket to keep the light out, and to keep it warm at night.  The daytime temperature is about 22°C and down to about 15°C at night.  The blanket will help as well.

So this is where it is located, but what does it look like?

The entire surface is covered in whiskers!  Well, mycelium really.  These are the fibres from which the mushrooms will grow.  It will get denser every day from now on until the buttons appear on the surface.

The funny thing is that when I first opened the box today, I had to do a double take because my first reaction was that Holly the dog had shedded hair all over the box.  I bit silly, but it is amazing what first comes into your head.

So far so good.  The instructions mention that there may be buttons forming as early as the 20 day mark, but I don’t like my chances.  It has been too cold at night.  However, I don’t think it will be too long to wait, maybe a couple of weeks, before we are picking like crazy.  Fingers crossed.

I better get going and grow the Shiitake mushrooms next!  From what I read, they take a bit longer to grow.

Previous posts in this series;

1. The Great Mushroom Experiment
2. Growing Mushrooms – Preparation

 

Recently I waxed lyrical about growing mushrooms here at the house of GoG in this post titled The Great Mushroom Experiment.  

So, finally, I found the time together put one of the two kits that I bought to start growing.  I started off with the white button (Agaricus bisporus) mushrooms first, as I thought that may be the easiest to get a result.

I found the ingredients necessary for the kit, and got to it.

As I intended on making lots of mushrooms, because we eat them by the bucket load, I used 10 kg (22 lbs) of cow manure as the substrate.  Each packet of spores can inoculate 5 kg (11 lbs) of manure, so logically, I had to add two packets.  The essential ingredients are cow manure, compost mixed with garden soil, and of course the spores.

This is the packet of spores that I used.  Produced by Mr Fothergill’s, these mushroom spores are easy to use, and come with comprehensive instructions on the back of the pack.  I wasn’t left guessing when putting my kit together.

I used a spare plastic tub that I rescued from my shed.  It was ideal as the instructions suggested a large plastic bag or crate.  As an added bonus, I still had the lid, which I think in the initial stages of growth will keep the moisture in the box.  Time will tell as to if this is a good thing.

Once I added the cow manure, I gave it a light spray of water so that it was just moist (not damp) then I sprinkled on the inoculated grains (looked like dried rice grains) on top of the manure.  Now while we are on the subject of manure, I may have made a mistake at this stage.

I accidentally picked up a bag of cow manure blend, instead of pure cow manure.  Upon opening the bag, I found bits of wood and all sorts of additives to the cow manure.  Not sure if this is good or bad, but there was still a lot of crushed manure in the mix.

Anyway, here is a close up of the grains.

Now I gave it a big mix to make sure that the grains were thoroughly mixed through the manure blend.  It didn’t take too long, but I kept mixing for a few minutes more just to make sure.

With the spore mixed in, it was time to add a layer called a casting.  This is to separate the substrate from the surface (I think).

I mixed up 1:1 ratio of compost with seed raising mix and picked out any large bits of wood or the like.

It was about 2.5 cm (1 inch) thick, which I lightly patted down.  Then I moistened this layer with my spray bottle, and I placed the lid on top to keep in the moisture.  I made sure that I did not clip on the lid, it was just placed on loosely so that the mix could breathe.

Once I was happy with it all, Kim took this happy snap.

I stored it in the darkest place on our deck, out of direct sunlight.  The instructions suggest that it should be stored in a cool room, garage, shed, or under the house at a temperature of 15-20°C (59-68°F).  As it has been getting down to about 11°C (52°F) during the night, we placed a thick blanket over the box to provide some insulation, and to block out direct light.

It look very bright in this photo, but rest assured, it is quite dark in this corner of the deck.  This is the spray bottle that I have been using over the last week to keep the casting moist.  I found the pump at one of those $2 shops, and it screws onto an old soft drink bottle.  Great little find, as once pumped with air, it provides a fine mist of water.  Perfect for this sort of growing, I believe.

Anyway, I have been looking after the mushrooms for about a week now, and no sign of activity on the surface.  With that said, the instructions state that mushrooms may appear within as little as 20 days, so I am not even close to that yet.

So now we wait.  Looking forward to writing about the first flush of growth!

Tomorrow I will be preparing the shiitake mushrooms, so watch out for a post about them soon.