Congratulations on making up your own oyster mushroom bag in one of my workshops. I appreciate your participation and involvement.
Teaching others how to grow their own mushrooms at home is something I am passionate about, especially as the process is actually less complicated than what people believe it to be. However it’s always handy to be able to go back and double check the steps to make sure your mushroom bag delivers the best harvest as possible; that’s what it’s all about!
So here a few after-care hints and tips to help you along the way, as and when you need a guiding hand.
To recap from the workshop, you’ve made up a unicorn bag (with a filter patch to allow air to move in and CO2 out of the bag) with a mixture of pasteurised straw and oyster grain spawn. The top of the bag has been sealed with either microporous tape or a heat sealer, and you’ve labelled it up so you know exactly what you are growing.
The next stage is less hands on but equally as interesting…
Incubation:
Place your mushroom bag in a dark, warm area, An airing cupboard is ideal for this.
As the mycelium colonises the substrate (straw), it will create CO2 and this will seep out of the filter patch, so it is worth opening and closing the door to your cupboard at least once a day, just to air the area around the bag.
The incubation period can be a lengthy depending on conditions; if the incubation area is slightly cooler, it will take the mycelium longer to colonise the straw, just as too much heat can impact on growth too.
Over time, you will see a change happening in the bag; you will notice it become whiter in colour and feel more solid than when you made the bag up. This is a great sign, it means the conditions are perfect for the mycelium to grow.
The length of the incubation stage can vary, again depending on conditions, but if all goes well, you could be looking at a fully colonised bag between 3-4 weeks.
And when you start noticing the little pin heads dotted around the substrate and the bag contains what may look like a solid mass of white straw, those are good signs that your bag is ready to go to the next stage.
Fruiting:
This is what you’ve been waiting for! The little pin heads are the start of your developing mushrooms.
What your mushrooms need now is daylight, increased humidity and constant temperatures. Your kitchen windowsill is a great place to grow your mushrooms, as you’ll be able to monitor their growth easily.
You want your mushrooms to grow out of an opening on the bag, so cut an X or a diagonal slit across the bag and this will indicate to the mushroom that this is where it should concentrate its growth.
You may also find that pin heads are in other areas of your bag if you look closely enough; what you don’t want to do is cut so many openings in your bag that it’s starts to resemble Swiss cheese. I personally wouldn’t cut anymore than 2 holes in the bag.
Mist the air around the bag several times a day, make sure you’re not misting directing into the opening as this will encourage pooling of water and increase the risk of contamination over time. Misting keeps the humidity to a high level - something mushrooms love.
Harvest:
The pin heads will double in size each day as long as they are growing in the right conditions (high humidity, correct temperature and access to sunlight).
The right time to harvest is when the cap of the mushroom still has a slight curl to the edge and hasn’t flattened out. If it has gone beyond this stage you may find that there is a white/ pink powder around the bottom of the bag; these are the spores which have dropped from the gills of the mushroom. Don’t worry, just clean it up and it’s a great indicator that your mushrooms are at the point of harvesting.
It is better to harvest your mushrooms a little earlier than later (before the spores drop) - this comes with practice!
How to harvest the mushrooms: Push your fingers behinds the mushrooms so you feel like you are holding them in the cup of your hand and gently twist off.
Remember to cut away any substrate from the base of the mushroom harvest, you definitely do not want to eat that!
Storage:
The mushrooms should keep for a few days in the fridge, preferable in a paper bag.
They will start to lose moisture over time so don’t be alarmed if you find that they seem a little dry after a few days - they’ll perk up once you’re cooking with them.
Second harvest:
You should be able to get a second harvest if your first harvest went well without any issues - hurrah!
Soak the bag in a sink or container full of water overnight. This re-hydrates the substrate.
In the morning, let it drain away and place the bag back in its fruiting area. Mist as per usual.
If you’re lucky enough to get a second harvest - it will be smaller than the first but hey, more mushrooms!
Mushroom compost:
After your first, and hopefully second, harvests you’ll be left with a bag of spent substrate and a diminishing mycelium.
Put it to good use in your compost bin or heap, it’ll do wonders for your garden!
Just open the bag, throw the block of substrate in/ on your compost, use a spade or fork to break it up and voila - mushrooms compost!
Issues:
Unfortunately there will be times when things just don’t go to plan and issues arise. It could be an issue with contamination in the earlier stages or incorrect conditions later on. It happens, it sucks.
Green or black mould - throw the bag away. Don’t open the bag indoors, it’ll release spores into the air and you really don’t want to be breathing those in.
Water in the bag - you should expect a small amount of water in the bag, you’ll be misting it regularly over its fruiting period and some will end up pooling in the bag at some point. As long as that’s all you see, don’t worry. Carry on as normal.
No pins - sometimes we can try everything and make sure we’ve followed all steps correctly, but the pins still don’t make an appearance. Give it a few more days, you may just have a slower colonisation period and they’ll appear at some point, but if you’re still waiting after more than a week, then it may just have been a failed attempt. Again it happens and it still sucks.
Scariad flies - LOVE mushrooms!! Their sense of smell is so good that even if you can’t smell any mushroom ‘smell,’ they will and they’ll be over your emerging mushrooms as soon as they can. One fly suddenly becomes 2 and then 10+ and it’s a pain, I’m not going to lie.
You could use fly paper to catch them or try to dispose of them if/ when you see them hovering around. Be cautious of using fly killer spray around your mushrooms as you don’t want this on your mushrooms.
As oyster mushrooms grow so quickly in the right conditions, hopefully you’ll be able to harvest them before the little blighters have any idea you’re growing one of their favourite foods and make a beeline for them.