Grow Your Own Mushroom Project

Since my husband is in a mushroom hunting phase this season, he recently came home with a Back to the Roots- Grow Your Own Mushroom Garden kit that he purchased at The Fresh Market. 

This is a photo of the unopened kit. 

Growing these oyster mushrooms has been one of our favorite projects this summer because it was so easy, and there was dramatic progress once they started developing. 

For a quick overview on oyster mushrooms, check this out. Oyster Mushrooms

To get started, all you have to do is bust out the perforated panel and remove the contents, a bag with soil and a small spray bottle.

Front panel removed- spray bottle and soil bag must be taken out.

Next, you take a knife and slice a "+" into the soil bag. The bag must then be submerged in water for 12 hours.

Here is a photo of the spore bag after it has been removed from the box. 

After the soil bag has been soaked for 12 hours, you just place it back into the box with the "+" side facing out, and spray it with water two times each day.

Soil bag, after soaking for 12 hours, back in its original box

After about two weeks, we began to see little mushrooms popping up from underneath the plastic!

Mist the soil with the spray bottle twice a day.

In the upper right hand corner, you can see tiny mushrooms beginning to form!

The oyster mushrooms grow quickly once they start popping out. At this point, it was so thrilling to watch them develop each day. For about 5 days, the progress was rapid and fascinating!

These were so fun to observe!

Fantastic to see!

We really enjoyed watching our daughter care for these mushrooms. She sprayed them with water herself, at least once every day.

The mushrooms continued to grow for about week. We could have harvested and eaten all of these, but since you get TWO crops with each box, we let the first batch grow and then dry out for observation.

We did cut one fresh mushroom off to cook up with our dinner when it was in its prime. The next batch is on the menu already. Mmmmmmm!

Almost at full size here

Once we were done with the first experiment, we were able to remove the mushrooms we had grown. Then, we simply extracted the bag and repeated the same process using the other side of the soil to grow another crop!

COOL!

Even cooler? If you post a photograph of you with your mushroom kit on the Back to the Roots Facebook page, the founders will donate one kit to a classroom of your choice! As a former high school English teacher and the daughter of an elementary school teacher, I think this donation is an incredibly admirable selling point for purchasing this kit. 

Amazing shapes

The story behind the founders of this company is inspiring as well, so if you have a minute, check it out here http://www.backtotheroots.com/our-story .

LOVE LOVE LOVED this project for the whole family! It was definitely worth the $20. What a great idea! These kits would make excellent gifts for children, families, teachers, those who love to cook or mushroom enthusiasts.

Side view of fully developed oyster mushrooms

And once your project is complete, here are some yummy recipes for cooking up your harvest! Oyster Mushroom Recipes

Have a blast, and let me know what you think if you try this project or if you have any questions. Enjoy!!!
XOXO From My Hearth to Yours