Mushroom Diary 3

Growing mushrooms is a very slow process...I think.  My shimeji pieces have not gotten much bigger from the last time I posted about them.  However, they have expanded a little bit horizontally and seem to be forming a web of some sort.

I hope they would grow faster~ >.< oh well, I should be a little more patient...

- Mimi

Mushroom Diary 2

It is officially 4 days after I "planted" my pieces of mushroom inside cardboard!  Now they have all become super cute little white fuzz balls!!  Aren't they adorable? We will see what's going to happen in another two days.

On the other hand, I have also ordered some oyster mushroom spawns from ebay, but since they are getting shipped from the UK, we will not get to see them until December Q_Q.

- Mimi

Mushroom diary 1

Mom and I have wanted to grow mushrooms for a long time now, but we were always too intimidated by the unfamiliarity of the field.  Then we discovered that growing mushrooms in coffee grounds is rather easy and not very time consuming.  So we decided to grow some Shimeji mushrooms in our house because we could not find oyster mushrooms in the Asian market we went to >.>;

Our long term goal is to grow oyster mushrooms, but since we eat lots of Shimeji in the winter, we will grow this testing batch for fun.  I mean, it doesn't really cost us anything considering that I only used one piece of mushroom to inoculate, and everything else is free.

 
I found a tutorial on how to start the batch online (for oyster mushrooms) by cutting the bottom part of the existing mushroom into little pieces and let them grow in soaked cardboard.  We sterilized our cardboard with hot water hoping that no contamination will occur.

This is what it looks like when all the mushrooms are stacked inside the cardboard

All we have to do from here is to wait for the mycelium to grow by decomposing the cardboard in a dark place which is underneath our sink.  We air the mycelium out once a day to get rid some of the carbon dioxide that have accumulated.  

Day 3:

My patience is non-existent.  We just started this batch on Saturday, and today (Monday) I'm taking a peek to see whether the growing process has started or not.  

Hummm, still very small pieces...

but taking a closer look:

WOW, little bits of hair has started to grow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SOOO COOL!!

So, yes, so far the mushrooms are growing!  We will see what happens in a couple of days.

- Mimi