Do you want to always have fresh, aromatic mushrooms at any time of the year? Learn how to grow them yourself in a plastic bottle or bag! The technology is extremely simple and accessible. The mycelium will delight you for a long time. The harvest will be enough for your family and all your friends!

What you will need:

• a large plastic bottle or plastic bag;
• straw;
• grain mycelium of mushrooms;
• scissors, tape, soldering iron (or just a heated nail).

Growing Mushrooms: A Step-by-Step Process

Straw is perfect for growing mushrooms. It needs to be tamped into a large pot, filled with water and boiled for at least half an hour. After that, let the excess liquid drain and cool.

Note: The straw remains slightly damp, but when squeezed, only a few drops of water are released.

This is an ideal medium for seeding mycelium.

In a clean plastic bottle, use a soldering iron or a hot nail to make holes  every 10 cm .

Mushrooms will grow from here. Cut off the bottom of the bottle.

Clarification: All instruments, bottle and hands must be sterile (laundry soap + alcohol).

Prepare oyster mushroom mycelium. It is convenient to use grain mycelium.

It takes  2-3 weeks to grow on straw .

Turn the bottle upside down. Lay layers of damp straw and sprinkle with grain mycelium.

Put the cut off bottom of the bottle back in place, glue it with tape.

Place the bottles in a room where the temperature will be maintained at  +18…+24 degrees .

The air humidity should be  80% . Then the mycelium will quickly and efficiently take root. To maintain such humidity, it is enough to spray the bottles from a spray bottle  1-2 times a day .

Advice: Provide additional ventilation to the room and do not allow moisture to stagnate in the straw.

At the stage of mushroom formation, low-intensity light (natural or artificial) is required for  10-12 hours  a day, maximum  5 W  per 1 sq. m. Comfortable temperature will be  +11…+28 degrees . Humidity should also increase – up to  90-95% .

The oyster mushroom germinates quite quickly and without problems. The mycelium fills the entire straw and begins to form mushrooms that crawl out of pre-cut holes in the bottle.

The most dangerous is damage  by mold fungi  (the substrate has become black or bluish). As a rule, this occurs due to lack of sterility. Such mycelium should be thrown away immediately.

Advice: You need to cut the mushrooms with the stem – then the mycelium will produce a harvest 2-3 more times.

Perhaps the main condition for success in growing mushrooms is high-quality seed material + sterility.

From the moment of sowing the mycelium to harvesting, it takes an average of  1.5 months . Practice growing oyster mushrooms in several bottles and, if successful, move on to larger bags!