3 Simple Ways to Do It

Learning how to grow mushrooms at home is affordable, environmentally friendly, and educational. Growing your own makes specialty mushrooms like shiitake, lion’s mane, oyster, and cremini more affordable than buying from the grocery store or farmers’ market.

With just a few basic supplies and materials, you can grow your own mushrooms at home by inoculating a substrate like straw or wood chips with mycelium, the rootlike structure of fungi.

Read on for information on how to grow low-maintenance, environmentally friendly, and nutritious mushrooms using a premade kit, logs, buckets, or even your garden.

Best Methods to Grow Mushrooms

You can grow mushrooms at home in a few different ways, including both indoor and outdoor methods:

• With a grow kit: This quick, easy way to grow your own mushrooms begins with purchasing a ready-made mushroom block already inoculated with spawn.
• Using logs: Some mushrooms can be cultivated by drilling holes in logs or tree stumps and inoculating them with mushroom spawn.
• In buckets: This space-saving outdoor method allows you to grow your own mushrooms in reusable containers.
• In garden beds: Create a bed in your garden for mushrooms to grow on a substrate like wood chips or straw.

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How to Grow Mushrooms With a Grow Kit

A mushroom growing kit is ideal for growing mushrooms indoors. Kits typically include a block of substrate already colonized with fuzzy white mycelium and encased in a plastic bag. You can purchase kits for mushrooms like oyster, shiitake, and crimini from a local mushroom farm or from online sellers. You’ll want to consult the directions that come with your kit, but here are the basic steps.

1. Put your mushroom block in a warm place that’s out of direct sunlight and not too dry.
2. Make an X-shaped cut in the plastic bag on the front of your mushroom block. Spritz the cut well with water.
3. Spritz the block at least twice a day to keep the block moist. Within one to two weeks, you’ll see pins, or tiny mushrooms, begin to form.
4. After pin formation, your mushrooms will grow quickly and should be ready to harvest in a few days.
5. After harvesting, you can crumble up your mushroom block and add it to your garden soil or compost, or put it in a shady spot outdoors and keep it moist to try and cultivate a second flush.

How to Grow Mushrooms On a Log

Cultivating mushrooms using logs is a little more involved than using an already-purchased kit, and the process takes much longer from beginning to harvest. However, it’s a lower-cost method, and an inoculated log can continue fruiting for years depending on its size and the type of mushroom you choose. You can grow shiitake, oyster, lion’s mane, reishi, and other mushrooms using logs.

1. Gather freshly felled logs from hardwood trees like oak, elm, maple, or birch. Logs should be at least 4 inches thick and 3 to 4 feet long. Keep in mind that thinner logs or branches will colonize faster, but they won’t last as long as thicker pieces. Purchase premade plug spawn, which is faster and easier to use, or sawdust spawn. Check with the source to ensure your wood is compatible with the type of mushroom you’d like to grow.
2. Drill holes into the log to a depth of one inch. Drill in a diagonal pattern with the holes spaced 3 to 6 inches apart, depending on the type of mushroom.
3. Insert the spawn into each of the holes on your log.
4. Melt and brush food-grade wax over each hole to protect the spawn from getting contaminated or drying out.
5. Put the logs in a shady, moist area and wait. If you live in a hot, dry climate, you may want to set a mister on a timer to keep the logs moist. Depending on the type of mushroom and climate, logs inoculated in spring could fruit later in the fall or the following year.

How to Grow Mushrooms in a Bucket

Growing mushrooms in a bucket or other container can be done indoors or outdoors with basic equipment. You’ll need to pasteurize your substrate before inoculating it with mushroom spawn. Here’s how to grow mushrooms in a bucket.

• Drill 1/2-inch holes in a diamond pattern all over a new or well-cleaned food-grade 5-gallon plastic bucket with a lid.
• If you’re using wood chips or straw, you’ll need to pasteurize your substrate. You can do this by putting your substrate in a large mesh bag and submerging it in a clean plastic tub of water between 140 and 180 degrees. Allow your pasteurized substrate to soak overnight to hydrate fully. Remove the mesh bags from the water and allow them to drip dry overnight.
• Sanitize the bucket, then fill it with alternating layers of about 2 inches of substrate followed by a thin layer of spawn. Use at least 2.5 pounds of spawn per bucket.
• Put the lid on the bucket and move it to a cool, moist area of your house or yard. Loosely cover the bucket with a garbage bag to help hold in moisture and ensure the substrate doesn’t dry out. The spawn should inoculate the substrate within about two weeks.
• Keep an eye out for pins, tiny formations that will become full-sized mushrooms. Once pins form, mist the bucket regularly to keep them moist. Your mushrooms should be ready to harvest in about 10 days.

How to Grow Mushrooms in Garden Beds

If you have sufficient outdoor space, you can grow mushrooms at home in your garden. This method makes use of shady areas not suited for growing plants and helps increase soil health. The classic garden mushroom is known as wine cap or stropharia, but shiitake, oyster, lion’s mane, hen of the woods, morels, and others can also be cultivated this way.

• Choose a section of your garden where you’d like to grow mushrooms and cover it with a layer of cardboard.
• Add 2 inches of wood chips, straw, or other substrate and cover it with a thin layer of spawn. Continue layering this way until the mushroom bed is at least 8 inches deep.
• Mulch the bed and water it well to keep the substrate moist, particularly in the first few weeks.
• Over time, the spawn will colonize the substrate fully and mushrooms will fruit. A bed planted in spring can be ready to harvest in fall.
• Mix in another layer of substrate to encourage another harvest the next year.

Best Types of Mushrooms to Grow

There are thousands of species of fungi and dozens of edible and medicinal varieties. Here are some of the easiest and tastiest types of mushrooms to grow at home.

• Lion’s mane: These furry-looking white mushrooms are an excellent source of nutrition and are said to have medicinal properties.
• Oyster: This popular edible mushroom, which can be white, pink, yellow, or gray, gets its name from its shellfish-like flavor.
• Shiitake: With their robust flavor and sturdy texture, shiitakes make an excellent source of umami and can substitute for animal proteins in recipes.
• Button: Versatile, easy-growing white button mushrooms are the most commonly grown mushroom in the world.

Tips for Growing Mushrooms at Home

Keep these best practices in mind when you’re ready to grow your own mushrooms:

• Spring is a good time to start cultivating mushrooms outdoors with the bucket, log, or garden methods.
• Mushrooms thrive in cool, moist environments, so monitor the substrate and mist it regularly while the mycelium is growing and once pins have appeared.
• Keep mushroom buckets, kits, and logs in a cool, humid place. Mushrooms grow best between 60°F and 75°F.
• Once pins appear, mushrooms can grow very quickly. Harvest them when they’re a good size but still young and firm.