The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Do it Yourself Discussion! => Topic started by: neophyte on March 01, 2015, 01:40:45 PM
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Like the title says, I'm wondering if anyone here grows their own mushrooms. I'm just starting to consider trying it and looking for good how-to resources, opinions on whether or not it's 'worth it', and cost cutting tips.
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Check out fungi perfecti.com. Not only do they sell spore but there's a lot of info on the how to. There's this mushroom expert, Gary Lincoff, that you can follow on facebook. He wrote the guidebook to north american mushrooms. I prefer to grow my own rather than forage because then I am certain not to confuse a poisonous one with a safe one.
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I'm taking a class on how to grow mushrooms in three weeks!
Obviously growing your own mushrooms is more expensive than foraging for them, but it should end up being mildly cheaper than buying them at the store.
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I would like to! It sounds like it might be a decent side gig if you can easily access a market for them. I'm not sure where to start on that.
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It sounds like it might be a decent side gig if you can easily access a market for them.
It depends on where you live, really. If you've already got a bunch of people selling mushrooms, or if there isn't really any local demand for fancy mushrooms, you'll have a rough time turning a decent profit. Not to mention, when you want to grow at any kind of scale, you need to be very mindful of the potential health risks (e.g. mushroom lung).
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Second indio on fungiperfecti! One word of caution, if you are planning on oyster mushrooms in an indoor kit (there are tons of kits out there for it), Don't do it, it's a health hazard due to the amount of spore they release. You can create outdoor beds if you have the space, which is what I've done (grown them in the garden, great for the soil) but it take careful prep and can be up to 2 years before you see anything.
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Well, I tried to start a mycelium on cardboard and coffee grounds about a week ago and I think it's starting to grow. The initial pieces of mushroom I put in are all white and fluffy now and just starting to spread into the coffee. I tried with King Oyster mushrooms so the spores could be a concern but I've got a while to figure out how to deal with that. Worst case scenario if I can't figure it out, I can just dump the lot in my compost pile. Unfortunately my back yard is tiny, shared, and ridden with heavy metals so I don't think I'll be putting in a mushroom bed.
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Second indio on fungiperfecti! One word of caution, if you are planning on oyster mushrooms in an indoor kit (there are tons of kits out there for it), Don't do it, it's a health hazard due to the amount of spore they release. You can create outdoor beds if you have the space, which is what I've done (grown them in the garden, great for the soil) but it take careful prep and can be up to 2 years before you see anything.
Is it just oyster mushrooms that are dangerous inside? If you buy a kit, can you just keep growing that kind of mushroom (by starting a mycelium?)
I have a serious love of mushrooms so this topic is very interesting to me. :D
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Second indio on fungiperfecti! One word of caution, if you are planning on oyster mushrooms in an indoor kit (there are tons of kits out there for it), Don't do it, it's a health hazard due to the amount of spore they release. You can create outdoor beds if you have the space, which is what I've done (grown them in the garden, great for the soil) but it take careful prep and can be up to 2 years before you see anything.
Is it just oyster mushrooms that are dangerous inside? If you buy a kit, can you just keep growing that kind of mushroom (by starting a mycelium?)
I have a serious love of mushrooms so this topic is very interesting to me. :D
It "can" be hazardous for any kind, however the spore load of oyster mushrooms, combined with their ready availability, is what makes them the worst kind to grow indoors.
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Second indio on fungiperfecti! One word of caution, if you are planning on oyster mushrooms in an indoor kit (there are tons of kits out there for it), Don't do it, it's a health hazard due to the amount of spore they release. You can create outdoor beds if you have the space, which is what I've done (grown them in the garden, great for the soil) but it take careful prep and can be up to 2 years before you see anything.
Is it just oyster mushrooms that are dangerous inside? If you buy a kit, can you just keep growing that kind of mushroom (by starting a mycelium?)
I have a serious love of mushrooms so this topic is very interesting to me. :D
It "can" be hazardous for any kind, however the spore load of oyster mushrooms, combined with their ready availability, is what makes them the worst kind to grow indoors.
I know that mushroom lung is a thing (and I mentioned it before), but I've only ever heard of it in the context of commercial growing operations. I suppose it depends on quantity, but I can't imagine that a small indoor oyster kit is going to hurt anyone. I could definitely be wrong though - do you have any kind of source you could point me to?
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Second indio on fungiperfecti! One word of caution, if you are planning on oyster mushrooms in an indoor kit (there are tons of kits out there for it), Don't do it, it's a health hazard due to the amount of spore they release. You can create outdoor beds if you have the space, which is what I've done (grown them in the garden, great for the soil) but it take careful prep and can be up to 2 years before you see anything.
Is it just oyster mushrooms that are dangerous inside? If you buy a kit, can you just keep growing that kind of mushroom (by starting a mycelium?)
I have a serious love of mushrooms so this topic is very interesting to me. :D
It "can" be hazardous for any kind, however the spore load of oyster mushrooms, combined with their ready availability, is what makes them the worst kind to grow indoors.
I know that mushroom lung is a thing (and I mentioned it before), but I've only ever heard of it in the context of commercial growing operations. I suppose it depends on quantity, but I can't imagine that a small indoor oyster kit is going to hurt anyone. I could definitely be wrong though - do you have any kind of source you could point me to?
I'm not sure, I just know at one of our mushroom club meetings, we had the guy from funghi perfecti in and he indicated it could be an issue, we also have a member of the club that got sick after growing one in a room she spent a decent amount of time in so to me it's a better safe than sorry thing.
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I'm wondering what will happen if I put them in the attic? I'm slightly worried about the possibility of a permanent mushroom colony up there. Other than that I'm thinking of trying to cover it with some kind of filter that would allow airflow but not spore flow. As long as it caught a good % of spores, I don't think it'd have to be perfect.
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They sell HEPA filters and stuff for indoor kits, but personally I think that's excessive and only if you are growing a lot of them. One of the women in the club puts them in a spare bathroom that has a vent fan to the outdoors, she just opens the door and turns on the vent fan for a few minutes before she checks them.
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Obviously growing your own mushrooms is more expensive than foraging for them, but it should end up being considerably cheaper than buying them outside the abandoned gas station.
FTFM
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I'm wondering what will happen if I put them in the attic? I'm slightly worried about the possibility of a permanent mushroom colony up there. Other than that I'm thinking of trying to cover it with some kind of filter that would allow airflow but not spore flow. As long as it caught a good % of spores, I don't think it'd have to be perfect.
Personally, I wouldn't grow food in my attic. We've had pest treatment up there, for one thing.
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I am looking at getting into it, but I'm waiting until I get some clean logs and then inoculating them outdoors. Just match the fungi to the wood species.
King Stropharia can be easily cultivated on wood chips but most mushrooms do best on hardwood. They do need to be used right away, where as most others store well.
There's a lot of info in permaculture books on mushrooms, but their philosophy is usually to inoculate as many dead trees as they can get a hold of and be patient.
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How do you go about acquiring logs if you live in the city though? I've been hiding some logs around my apartment building, but I don't even know where I'd get them.
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Obviously growing your own mushrooms is more expensive than foraging for them, but it should end up being considerably cheaper than buying them outside the abandoned gas station.
FTFM
I wondered how long that would take.
Personally, I wouldn't grow food in my attic. We've had pest treatment up there, for one thing.
Our Chief Pest Control Officer has been in our attic too. But she has four legs and a tail and gets on the kitchen counters when we're not looking anyway. I have no idea about before we moved in though. Our laundry is up there. It just seems kind of weird.
In other news, my mycelium is growing slowly but surely. I think I still have a couple weeks before I need to move it up into a bigger container.