Third time lucky with mushrooms

Amongst the various crops that we grew at our old house, one that we attempted occasionally was mushrooms. The pre-prepared kits are ideal for growing inside when you don’t have much of a garden and we’ve tried a couple of different ones in the last two or three years, with somewhat mixed results. One unfortunately ended in complete failure after we accidentally cooked (!) the mycelium on a radiator whilst trying to get the mushrooms to fruit, whilst the other produced some fine, if unspectacular, oyster mushrooms grown in a medium of recycled coffee grounds.

We’ve recently started our third attempt with a white button mushroom kit from Suttons Seeds which seems to be off to a promising start. We think the reason for this is it’s the first batch we’ve grown since we moved and our new home has an ideal location for growing mushrooms – on the worktop above our oil fired boiler. This may seem like quite a strange place but the combination of the heat from the boiler and the insulating effect of the worktop seems to keep the soil temperature around the 20°C mark, which is perfect for fruiting.

It’s still early days for our first crop but it seems to be doing well as we were able to harvest our first mushroom last night after being away from the house for a long weekend. With any luck it’ll be the first of many!