Homegrown Mushrooms: A Cultivation Guide

Ever thought about growing your own mushrooms at home? For many people the process is a mystery, even to many experienced in gardening and other horticultural pursuits. However, it’s not only fun but also rewarding, and easy to do. You get to watch these fascinating fungi sprout right before your eyes, and nothing beats the taste of mushrooms that you've grown yourself. Let’s walk through how easy it is.

Want to try growing mushrooms with the easiest grow kit on the market? Try RyzaPods.

Kickoff with Inoculation

Mushroom cultivation starts with inoculation, the act of introducing spores or cultures to a sterile or pasteurized substrate. In the case of our product, RyzaPods, you’ll inoculate through an injection port into our autoclaved sterilized substrate. That means all the tricky stuff is handled for you. However, some hardcore mushroom enthusiasts take pleasure in creating their substrate from scratch, mixing various recipes and then utilizing autoclaves to sterilize the substrate.

Incubation – Where the Magic Begins

Next up is incubation. This is when the mycelium colonizes, or takes over the substrate. Think of it like the mushroom’s roots spreading out underground in search of nutrients. Beneath the surface, it’s a whole world of activity that you can see progress day by day.

With RyzaPods, all you need to do is keep the pod in a dark and cozy corner of your house. It’s kind of like the mushrooms are hibernating, gathering strength to burst forth. Depending on what mushrooms you're growing, this could take a few weeks up to a month or more, so a little patience goes a long way here. This is the hardest part of homegrown mushrooms!

Time to Fruit

Pioppino mushrooms (Agrocybe aegerita), a gourmet mushroom that you can’t find in any supermarket. Just one of many mushrooms you can grow at home!

When the pod looks mostly covered in mycelium (that’s the white or cream-colored fuzzy stuff), it’s showtime! This stage is called fruiting, and it's where you help the mushrooms come out and see the world. This means letting some air in, additional humidity, and introduce it to some indirect light. Mushrooms don’t need as much light as plants do, but they do like a little. Light tells the mycelium it can be confident in putting energy into producing mushroom fruit bodies, their reproductive organs that release spores in the wild.

Fruiting conditions are critical for this final step, but often very easy to introduce. This generally means frequent misting with a spray bottle in a semi-enclosed environment that keeps humidity in, but allows a little bit of fresh air exchange. Fungi, like animals, breathe oxygen and expel carbon dioxide. RyzaPods come with a humidity dome that includes a filter patch that allows CO2 to get out of the enclosure and fresh oxygen in.

Keep the humidity up by misting the inside of the pod and the dome. Just make sure not to let water pool at the bottom – we don’t want any mushroom swamps! Overly wet conditions can inhibit mushroom growth and even cause bacteria to flourish, which can lead to contamination that ruins the grow.

Harvest Time

Soon, you’ll see tiny mushrooms, sometimes called pins, start to appear. They grow up fast, so keep an eye on them! When they look just right, usually when the cap is still slightly curled under, it’s time to pick them. Gently twist them at the base, and voila, you’ve got fresh mushrooms ready for your next meal.

Rinse and Repeat

What's great about mushrooms is that they keep on giving. After your first harvest, tweak your setup based on what you’ve learned—maybe a bit more mist, a bit less light—and go for another round. Each harvest can teach you something new. This process, known as producing more flushes, is common among most species of mushrooms, but not in all cases. Some mushrooms species are one and done.

That’s it!

Growing mushrooms at home is like having a mini science experiment in your own kitchen or living room. Whether it’s a gourmet variety, or a medicinal kind that’s been used by humans for millennia it’s an extremely gratifyingly hobby. Give it a try, and see just how easy and enjoyable homegrown mushrooms can be. Happy growing!