Hi, I'm Tricia, a California organic gardener.
If you've ever tasted a freshly harvested mushroom, you know how flavorful that is.
And what a great companion for your garden vegetables.
There are a variety of ways to grow mushrooms.
Outdoors in a garden bed, or outdoors on a log, or indoors in a box,
which is what we're going to do today, it's the easiest method.
When you get your kits, check the date on the flap. Wait until this date to start the kits,
but don't wait more than 45 days after the date.
The oyster mushroom kit is a little bit easier.
When you open the box you'll see a big plastic bag.
This black plastic bag contains everything to grow the mushrooms.
You can stand it on its side, like this,
and you'll have mushrooms that grow out in a shelf formation.
If you leave it down they'll grow up like flowers.
Don't open the bag, because the mushrooms will grow out of these little holes.
The optimum temperature for these oyster mushrooms to grow
is between 65 and 68 degrees, which is a common household temperature.
However, anywhere between 55 and 75 degrees you are going to get mushrooms.
When you open up your kit, you're going to find detailed instructions - how to start it,
a bag of peat moss, which is the casing for your mushroom kit,
and the compost, which is where the mycellium live.
This frosty white stuff is the mycellium. If you don't see any yet, that just means the kit is newly inoculated.
If it's newly inoculated, you can leave it alone for about seven days,
or if it's ready, but you aren't, you can store it for a couple of weeks at about 50 degrees, and then start it.
You want to rough up the surface of the compost about a half an inch,
this will give the mushrooms a good surface to grow in.
I'm going to skim off about a cup of this compost and mix it with the peat moss.
If you want fewer, but larger, mushrooms,
just skim off about a half a cup.
Now we're going to add 5 cups of room temperature water to the casing mix,
and we're going to let it sit for 15 minutes. This is an important step.
Once the casing mix has absorbed all the water make, sure it's mixed well.
Spread the peat moss casing evenly over the top of the kit, make sure that it is not densely packed.
Spread and fluff up the casing so that the mushrooms have a nice rough surface to grow.
The optimum temperature for Portabella mushrooms to grow is between 63 degrees and 68 degrees,
however you'll still get mushrooms as long as the temperatures stay between 60 and 74 degrees.
While both kits should be kept out of direct sunlight,
the oyster mushrooms need a little bit of light, but the Potabellas don't really care.
Make sure that the flaps are open on the box and that the plastic stays open.
To prevent the kits from drying out, make sure that they're placed away from any direct heat source.
And you could have some spore release,
so it's a good idea to put down some newspaper to protect furniture and walls.
Of course harvesting on time will minimize for release.
Keep your kits moist,
the portabellas like a misting about every other day,
the oyster mushrooms need a little bit more water.
You want to spray these everyday and then about two to three times a day when you start to see mushrooms.
Don't give them too much water because they don't have any place to drain.
And in about 2 weeks you should start seeing some mushrooms!
Sometimes your kits will attract fungus gnats,
if so just put out some of these yellow sticky traps.
It's time to harvest our Portabella mushrooms!
You don't want to cut the mushrooms, what you want to do is twist the cap and pull.
You know your Portabellas are ready to harvest
when you see that the veil has torn away from the cap of the mushroom, exposing the gills,
and if the veil hasn't torn off yet, that's okay, harvest the mushroom as a cremini mushroom.
You don't want to wait to harvest your mushrooms
to the point where the mushroom cap starts to flip up.
If you wait that long, your mushroom may release some spores.
For oyster mushrooms, pick them when they reach a mature size or when they stop growing.
Only eat fresh looking mushrooms and be sure and cook them all before eating.
Oyster mushrooms will sometimes set too much fruit and abort some of the crop.
Don't eat these. Pick them and discard them when you harvest.
The first and second harvest will be the best and the kit will stay productive for about 12 weeks.
After that you can take the soil from the kit and put it in the vegetable garden as a top-dressing,
or put it in the compost pile.
So, always cook your mushrooms
and Grow Organic for Life!