I’m so happy that you’re starting your mushroom journey with us. Growing your own oyster mushrooms at home is a fun, rewarding, and delicious experience. With our high-quality grow kit, you can enjoy fresh mushrooms in just a few weeks! If you’re a seasoned grower, the steps below are probably old news to you, but for those of you who are just starting out, here are a few tips to ensure you have the best grow possible.
1. Provide the optimal environment
While oyster mushrooms are incredibly tolerant and can thrive even in less-than perfect conditions, providing the optimal environment will help generate the best, biggest, and most favorable mushrooms. Follow the steps below to help create the best home environment for your oysters.
• Humidity: All mushrooms require humidity to grow. However, unlike other strains, oyster mushrooms don’t require 90% humidity and do very well in slightly dryer climates. Most rooms in your house will offer enough humidity, which is generally around 60 - 70%. During the winter when your heat is running or if you live in a very dry climate over the summer, you can raise the relative humidity by placing a wet towel under the mushrooms or placing your grow kit in the bathroom where the humidity tends to be much higher, especially after a hot shower. If you’re not sure whether your mushrooms are getting enough humidity, you can check by feeling or touching the caps. If they are cracking or splitting, that’s a clear indication that the environment is too dry and you should elevate the humidity level using one of the methods above.
• Airflow: Oyster mushrooms can’t get enough fresh air! One of the reasons people sometimes have a hard time growing mushrooms in a tent or a controlled environment is that there isn’t enough fresh air exchange and too much CO2 buildup. This is a crucial part of growing oysters and another reason why oyster mushrooms can be grown out in the open this way.
• Temperature: Most oyster mushroom varieties prefer temperatures between 60–75°F (13–24°C). Keep your kit in a space with stable temperatures to avoid stress on the mycelium. Blue oysters tend to do very well in colder temps.
Pink oyster grow that was stunted by lack of humidity
2. Give your mushrooms the right amount of light
Unlike plants, mushrooms don’t require direct sunlight, but they do need some light to grow properly. You don’t need anything special for your grow kits. Indirect natural light or a soft artificial light source (such as a fluorescent or LED light) is ideal. Aim for about 12 hours of light per day, mimicking a natural day-night cycle. Mycelium also uses light as a trigger to start producing mushrooms. Remember that mushrooms in the forest grow out of tree stumps and the ground and into the light and fresh air precisely because the mycelium wants to reproduce. To do that properly, it needs to produce fruits once it reaches the top of the soil or at the edge of the a tree stump in order for the spores to be released into the air.
3. Harvest at the right time
Timing your harvest correctly is essential for both flavor and continued growth. Here’s what to look for:
Mature blue oysters that are ready to harvest
• Mushrooms should be harvested when the caps have fully opened but before they begin to curl upwards.
• If left too long, they can become tough and drop spores, which can signal the mycelium to stop producing additional flushes.
• Another factor to consider is that if you leave your first flush to grow for too long it will use up all the nutrients and water in the substrate and it will have a harder time producing a second flush.
With all that said, we’ve made the mistake of letting our mushrooms grow too long a million times and they’re still delicious.
Over-grown blue oysters
4. Pay close attention to your kit as it is fruiting
Mushrooms have a relatively fast fruiting stage and so it’s good to keep close attention to them once they begin growing. For example, a mushroom that appears happy and healthy in the morning may be dry and overgrown by evening. If you have the ideal conditions, you shouldn’t need to do anything beyond harvesting your mushrooms at the right time. But if for example your mushrooms appear dry, you’ll need to follow the steps above to increase the humidity levels, which can help your mushrooms bounce back.
5. Rehydrate your substrate after the first flush
Mushrooms are 90% water. They pull that water from the substrate from which they grow. With each flush, the amount of water in your substrate diminishes, making it impossible for your mushrooms to continue fruiting. This is partly why after one very large flush of mushrooms, it’s likely your second flush will be significantly smaller. One helpful hack to get around this is to rehydrate your substrate after each flush by taking a spray bottle with filtered water and spraying directly into the holes. Spray each hole twice a day for a few days and it will decrease the time between flushes and help produce a bigger second or third flush.
Time to grow!
There is obviously a lot more to growing mushrooms than what I’ve listed here but these are the things that will make the biggest impact. Generally oyster mushrooms are an incredibly easy and forgiving strain to grow at home so even if you just set your grow kit in the kitchen and forget about it, you’ll probably still have a successful grow. However, if you want to get the best yields, following these simple steps will help make sure you get the most out of your grow kit.