Mushroom Kits?

We got the box mushroom kit a couple of years ago, it did very well, but at the end we had a lot of fruit flies. To be honest, I always see organic mushroom on sale at our local Kroger and buy everything that they have. I then dehydrate them and use them a lot that way.

So do I think it's worth it? Box mushroom kits = no, but they are a lot of fun, especially if you have children.

I didnt think that 14.95 was too bad of a price, and thought that it would be fun as much as anything. I would definately like to try out growing on a larger scale and more just from spores, not kits but thought that this was a good way to get our feet wet.

For me , it was definitely a great way to try it out. We had no fruitflies or problems at all. The interesting thing is that we allowed the mushrooms to get extra big and then chopped most of them and froze them. I believe that we got far more than the box was supposed to produce. It was well worth it to us. Mushrooms dont usually go on sale in the winter here and I've never found a coupon for any unless they were canned.

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~TheMartianChick~

My latest novels:
Bystander: A Tale of the End of the World as SHE Knew It!

Christmas in Bystander & Other Village Tales

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I was wondering about these kits, too. I got something in the mail with tons of little index card sized advertisements and there were a couple about mushroom kits in it. Good to know it's a viable option!

hey, that is good to know. Great tip!

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Trish

Seriously, I am COMPLETELY dressed!

Just keep moving...just keep moving!

I haven't tried freezing mushrooms. We can or dry them when we have time and an excess, but I've seen them in commercial mixed veggies so I assume they freeze well.
The commercially grown bags of mushrooms we got as "leftovers" from a mushroom grower here, are grown in chopped straw. We had the opportunity to see his equipment when we picked up the compost, and he has a big machine that accepts bales of straw and chops it into 1/4 to 3/4 inch bits and blows it into 1 1/4 cubic foot plastic bags with holes pre-punched all around (for the mushrooms to grow out of). The bags are soaked and innoculated with spoor then they sit on wire shelves in huge hoophouses. I don't know how long the initial flowering takes, but after we picked up the harvested bags, it was about a month outside in the rain and cold before they started flowering again. Ummm, that was before Thanksgiving I believe. They really haven't stopped since then, even though we have had freezing, snow and lots of rain.
A few years ago I met someone who had gotten "compost" portabellos in the summer, and he put the bags under the bush hedge around his yard where the irrigation system would hit them every time it came on. As summer got hot, the mushrooms didn't bloom as much, but he had piles of them, too. They're a lot more hardy than I would have expected, as long as they're kept wet/moist.
The pigs will eat mushrooms if fed them on purpose, but the freerange chickens, ducks and turkeys (and the sheep when they get out) don't bother them, so I don't have to protect them. They just sit there and grow!
Kit

Come spring, soak your whole log in water for a couple of days----works for us............