​Everyone knows that mushroom growing needs a dark, moist area. But many people don't realize that one can actually arrange an area that is sufficiently moist and dark in one's own greenhouse. The fact that people don't realize that they can potentially grow mushrooms right in their own greenhouse means that they often don't use this optimal place, even when they have it at their disposal.It's true that a greenhouse may not seem like an optimal location in which to go about your mushroom growing at first sight. But this is a fallacy. A green house can easily be adapted to the task of growing mushrooms and doing so can involve something as simple as covering the greenhouse with a canopy of plastic. So long as you screen out the light your mushrooms should do perfectly well. Another thing that you're going to have to see to if you want to grow mushrooms in your greenhouse is ensuring that temperatures remain stable. Mushrooms don't like too much of a variation in temperature and so this is something that you must try to avoid. If you can keep the temperature above around fifty degrees F and below sixty degrees F or so, your mushrooms should do just fine.
Now, another thing that you need to know about mushrooms is that if you want them to grow reasonably well, or indeed even to grow at all, you can't begin by planting them in mud. This is because fungi, which is what mushrooms are, don't grow in soil. Their organism is essentially made up of quite different materials from those of plants, and this means that mushrooms will refuse to grow unless planted in a medium that is rich in nitrogen. Such a medium is called a growth medium, and it can either be produced yourself with some effort, or can be bought in a store. If you intend to create the growth medium yourself, bear in mind that this can take some effort and is hardly worthwhile unless you intend growing a fairly large quantity of edible mushrooms.
On the other hand, for those in the initial stages of mushroom growing or those without much experience I would recommend a readymade growth medium. This will be more than adequate to your needs until you gain more experience, or alternatively, wish to expand productivity. At that stage, you can always begin producing your own growth medium to reduce the costs of your mushroom growing.

​The key to successful mushroom growing is really the environment that you maintain, and the nutrient mix that you use. Mushrooms are not organisms that adapt well to a variable environment, so if you want to grow mushrooms, you're going to have to ensure that the environment that you grow them in remains stable.The first aspect that you need to concentrate upon is light. While mushrooms can survive a small quantity of light, what they really love is darkness, so you're going to have to maintain a dark environment if you want your mushrooms to grow. On a small scale, this sort of darkness can be maintained just about anywhere. You could even grow mushrooms in a closed box mounted on a wall, right in your own home.
However, large scale growing had best not be done inside the house; this is because the nutrient mix used for mushrooms is so rich that it can encourage the growth of all sorts of pathogens. Growing mushrooms on a large scale inside the house could flood your house with these pathogens, and lead to infections and respiratory diseases. However, it's perfectly save to grow mushrooms inside the house on a very small scale.
If you have space in your garden shed, and if it doesn't suffer from draughts, it can do just fine for growing mushrooms. If you have a greenhouse available, you could use it for your mushroom growing, so long as you take the trouble to build a darkened enclosure for the mushrooms, or screen the glass panes of the greenhouse in some way. And of course, if you have a barn, that would be perfect.
Wherever you grow them, remember that your mushrooms need stable temperatures, and maintaining those temperatures can be absolutely crucial. If the temperature range were to rise or fall more than five degrees above or below fifty five degrees Fahrenheit for any length of time, you can be sure that your mushrooms will die.
For the same reason, draughts are absolutely fatal to mushrooms, because they usually include a drastic rise or fall in temperature, and this is what kills off mushrooms. The good news is, however, that if you manage to maintain the environment, and let's face it, it isn't that hard to do, mushroom growing can be pretty effortless. So long as you get the environment right, you can be assured that your mushrooms will give you little or no trouble.

 Just how much time should it take you to harvest mushrooms from your mushroom growing. Well, if you like large mushrooms, these can take up to three months to mature fully. This means that if you want to have a mushroom meal regularly, you're going to have to use a little strategy. The first strategy, of course, is to plant a great many mushrooms. The second strategy is to plant the spore or spawn in different areas of your mushroom beds at different times. Since the mushrooms in your mushroom beds will be sprouting and maturing at different times, you can be assured of a supply of mushrooms all through the month.When you first plant your mushrooms, whether you use spores or the more manageable spawn that is sold these days, you're going to have to keep your mushroom beds wet for a about three weeks, and the temperatures stable around about fifty five degrees Fahrenheit or so. This stable temperature and the moisture is what encourages the mushrooms to bud. After about two weeks or so, you'll see a delicate white net meshed over the growth medium. This net consists of mycelia, and is the root system that each mushroom growing puts out, though the mushrooms themselves will not be in evidence yet.

Nevertheless, nutrients are moving inwards, and the spores are growing into budding mushrooms, which will become visible to you about three weeks from planting the spores or spawn. Of course these mushrooms will be too small to consume, but once they appear, the growing process is well on track. Then it's only a question of keeping them growing. To do this, you need to keep out all draughts, and also cut down on the moisture a little. Watering the mushroom beds is all important in the first stages, and this needs to be done at least twice a day, but once the mushrooms actually start to appear, this can be cut down to misting once or twice daily.

​The mushrooms will take their nutrients directly from the nutrient-rich growth medium, and only need some gentle misting to prevent them from drying out. And that's all that you really need to do, to maintain the environment, and your mushrooms will grow. Keep the temperature in a steady range, don't let light touch your mushrooms, and keep out the draughts. As you can see, mushroom growing can be so simple.

​Mushroom growing on a small scale is relatively easy, as everyone knows. All you need is a little growth medium and some spores, and the mushrooms virtually grow themselves. These days you even have kits which allow you to grow mushrooms even more easily.
These kits provide you with everything that you could possibly need, and all you need to do is to water the mushrooms regularly and make sure they don't dry up. However, this sort of mushroom growing will provide the occasional mushroom meal for your family, but nothing more than that. If you want to grow enough mushrooms to share with your friends and acquaintances, you're going to have to go one better than this. You'll have to take a little trouble and prepare the containers for growing the mushrooms, and perhaps even the growth medium, yourself. However, if you succeed at this, you might even be able to go on to grow mushrooms commercially, or at least enough to sell them locally.

Now the first thing you need when you're considering growing mushrooms on a larger scale is space. After all, you can't grow anything unless you have the space to plant it in. You'll need some kind of garden shed or outhouse at the very least, but if you have this, growing mushrooms on a medium to large scale should be fairly easy.

Let's start with growing mushrooms on a medium scale first. The ideal growth container for mushrooms on this scale is a log or a thick piece of wood. Yes, mushrooms aren't plants, and they require very different conditions from plants to be grown successfully. For one thing, they do not use soil, nor are they usually grown in a flower pot. Instead, if you want to grow mushrooms on a medium scale, you would be well advised to get yourself a log. If you ever walked in a forest, you may have noticed how much mushrooms like logs.

​The simple fact is that mushroom growing is rather easy. All you have to do is follow a few simple tips and the mushrooms will virtually grow themselves. You just need to be careful of one or two things. Now two things that mushrooms need to grow exceptionally well are the right temperature and the right levels of temperature. But what many people don't know is that these levels of temperature may require changing at different stages of the mushroom growing process. That is to say, that mushrooms spores that are just putting out mycelia need a different range of temperature and humidity from mushrooms that have actually begun to grow. Why this is so is anyone's guess.Mine would be that these changes in temperature actually in some way reflect the growing conditions that mushrooms experience in the wild. However, whatever the reasons for this, the simple fact is that by tweaking and carefully controlling levels of temperature and humidity, you can get your mushrooms to grow far more successfully than would otherwise be possible. Now, the first thing to remember is that higher levels of temperature and humidity will encourage your mushrooms to bud and to put out roots. This means that in the first three weeks after you plant your mushroom spawn (or spores) you need to maintain higher levels of temperature and humidity than you will maintain later on.

In these first crucial three weeks (crucial, because if the mushrooms don't bud and put out a good net of mycelia now they might turn out stunted later) you need to keep temperatures hovering around about sixty five degrees Fahrenheit, and to make sure that the temperature does not vary more than a few degrees from that setting. If you know anything about growing mushrooms, you know that this setting is actually nearly ten degrees higher than that recommended for growing mushrooms, but the fact is that at this stage of your mushrooms' development, these are the temperatures that suit them best.

While maintaining these temperatures, make sure that you spray the growth medium with water twice a day and mist the environment as well to keep levels of humidity high. Keep things this way until you can actually see the mushrooms, and then lower temperatures to around fifty five degrees, and mist the mushrooms just once a day. Do this and your mushroom growing will result in a crop of large, healthful mushrooms.

​Mushroom growing is very easy when you know exactly what you're doing, and it's not difficult to learn the various steps involved in the process. Now, the basics of preparing growth medium and containers has been covered below, but the actual basics of how to plant and care for mushrooms will be covered in detail in the course of this series, stay tuned, and if you haven’t joined my newsletter, please do, as you will get early access and an inside look at all my current grows.

​You will most likely buy mushroom spores or spawn when you first learn to grow mushrooms, and before you learn to harvest the spores from mushroom caps for yourself. Now, there are two types of this spawn available. It is available in flakes, but it is also available in bricks as well. How you plant the spores or spawn depends on what sort that you buy. I would suggest, if you're thinking of planting mushrooms regularly, that you buy and plant both types, and see what works better for you.

If you buy and plant both types, there are very different methods of planting them. The bricks need to be broken into chunks, each about one inch in diameter. These chunks are put into the growing medium, spaced about half a food from each other. You need to make holes about an inch or two deep before you put these chunks in. Flakes are mixed right into the growth medium. Take about a quart of these flakes and spread them over fifteen square feet, and continue until you have the growth medium evenly covered. You need to mix these into the growth medium while doing this.

Make sure that the flakes are not visible on the surface of the growth medium. Whether you use chunks or flakes, the next steps to mushroom growing are the same. You spray a mist of water on to the mixture regularly, and keep it in the dark. Soon the mushroom spawn will begin to put out mycelia, which are the fungal version of roots. Once these are out, the mushrooms will really start to grow. As a matter of fact, in time you will see an intricate web of these pale white mycelia form.

Slightly increasing the temperature to about sixty five degrees Fahrenheit in this time will encourage growth. Remember to water daily. In a few weeks you should be able to see the mushrooms. You should not water in the period between when the mushrooms appear and the harvest. You can harvest mushrooms when they are either very small, or when they mature. Just use a sharp knife to harvest each mature mushroom, and there'll soon be another mushroom growing in its place.

We've gone over a lot of great information at this point. Using the previous blog posts I can guarantee your mushrooms will grow successfully. This is the simplest route to grow, I assure you.

After collecting all required materials ( that I've conveniently listed for you in the resources section) you'll adhere to good sanitation efforts. At the time of this writing COVID-19 is in full tilt so adherence to sanitary methods is an absolute must.

You'll mix Vermiculite and brown rice flower at a 2 cup:1 cup ratio and add 1 cup of water for every cup of brown rice flower. Your mixture will be placed in your mason jars to create BRF cakes.

These sealed jars will be placed in your pressure cooker for further sterilization.

Allow jars to cool and innoculate. 

Typically there's a 3 week wait until colonization

Remove the cakes from the jars

Soak

Place in Fruiting chamber.

Now, I have gone over a well detailed process for growing your mushrooms, but there's so much more to learn. 

How about additional methods?

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I use this growing guide and the bonuses to grow my own vegetables, herbs and mushrooms alike (that's nearly half your shopping list). 

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Ladies and Gentlemen, for the moment you've all been waiting for. After about a week you'll be ready for harvest (it depends on the mushrooms you're growing, see directions specific to your spores). The process is simple, grab the mushroom by the base, slightly twist and pull. You now have mushrooms. Although totally optional, I recommend using a food scale to measure how much you've harvested, if you're looking to do this consistently it'll be good to track how much you're able to harvest off of each cake. I've listed our household food scale in the resources section. 

Now again, depending on the mushrooms you're growing, harvest times vary. Also, some mushrooms are best eaten dehydrated, all depends.

Your cakes are not yet spent, you have the option to re-soak your cakes and redo the fruiting process off of your cakes. When your mushrooms grow shriveled and small or signs of contamination are present, then, your cakes are no longer usable. I've gotten 3 full harvests off of one cake, so once you've reached this point you'll be good for a while. Congratulations!

Very soon you will have harvested your very first mushrooms. To recap, you have now completed your 12 hour soak, and your cakes are ready to begin growing. Get your sanitizer out (Isopropyl alcohol). For this step you will need 3 things, a humidifier, a storage container, and a small light you can place inside (and of course your isopropyl alcohol to sterilize but that should be a given at this point). First, sterilize your humidifier and storage container, all areas, give it a good wipe down. Second, place your humidifier in your container, this will provide the moisture content needed for fruiting. Lastly, place your cakes in your fruiting chamber. The humidifier will provide plenty of moisture but it may be beneficial to open up the fruiting chamber and spray the cakes down with your pure water as well. Additionally, as a personal measure, I also take the time to wipe down any standing water building up within the chamber. This is just asking for mold which can potentially contaminate your grow. This process typically takes a week

​You can find the humidifier I use in the resources section.

You're almost there. The three week colonization period is now over, you have substrate completely covering the inside of the jars, from here on, your vermiculite/brown rice mixture covered in substrate shall be called "cakes". You are ready for soaking. What is soaking? You will first need to first remove your "cakes"from the jar, substrate and all.*REMINDER* SANITIZE YOUR HANDS AND PUT ON GLOVES. Remove the lid, flip the jar upside down, and beat the bottom of the jars like those glass ketchup bottles growing up. It's not uncommon for this to be a stubborn task, so don't be afraid use a STERILIZED knife or something similar to break the cake free. 

You've got all your cakes free, great work! So what now? Now take your high quality water (any high ph water will do) and fill a container (such as a pot) high enough that you can fully submerge your cakes. Please note that they will want to float, so you'll likely need to use something, such as a plate, to place on top of them and keep them submerged. Again, as with anything coming in contact with your growing process, sterilize the plate and pot with isopropyl alcohol(found in the resources tab or any local store ever). Once your cakes are fully submerged, leave them there for 12 hours.

Resources for this step:
(Found in resources section)
-Isopropyl Alcohol
-Gloves (optional)
-High Ph water
(Normal Household Items)
-Pot/deep container
-Plate (or anything to weigh down the cakes
-Experiences with glass ketchup bottles