Growing mushrooms in a box
Last winter, I finally tried out one of the mushroom growing boxes. What kept me from doing this earlier was the weight – with ~10kg it seemed quite heavy to move around. However, since mushroom hunting season is usually quite short around Berlin, we aimed at extending it a bit with the box. It promises multiple mushroom harvesting waves for about 4 months. The boxes are available with different kind of spores and i decided for the so rather regular Steinchampignons. After setting it up, adding some water, and waiting a couple weeks, the first mushrooms emerged quickly. Just a week later, they already surpassed the size of the ones you can get at the shops. Here is a picture of the first mushroom wave growing just before we started picking.
The first harvest consisted only of 4 mushrooms, however they were enormous and weighed almost a kilogram altogether. We filled the caps with a mix of rice, sun dried tomatoes, eggplant, onions, and Parmesan, and put them in the oven for about 20 minutes. Yummy!
Even though we carefully watered the soil in the box after each harvest, the following waves produced way smaller (and fewer) mushrooms. Nevertheless, it was still nice to get fresh mushrooms almost every other week. After the growing ceased, i tried to add fresh soil to the box, hoping the spores would feast on it and reactivate mushroom growth. Sadly, it did not work – after waiting some more month without a single mushroom, the box went into the organic trash can.
The best mushrooms come from the forest, even though it’s fun to watch them grow at home. I recommend that you come with me to find mushrooms in the fall.