Thoughts from Quail Thicket - Observations from a country home.

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

December 30, 3020 – Mushroom Kit

This Christmas I ordered a Mushroom Kit from Willow Mushroom Mushrooms. It is a white button mushroom kit and it arrived on December 10, 2020.

This is not my first Mushroom Kit – I have had several over the last 16 or so years.

However, this one had the most complete instructions with the Kit and this had the best mycelium I’d witnessed upon arrival.

Mycelium is pronounced: [mīˈsēlēəm]

which is a fine white weblike structure from which the mushrooms grow.

Today I picked my first mushrooms – several big ones and I immediately sliced them, sautéed them in olive oil and butter and used them for the base of a Mushroom and onion Quiche.

You receive the kit and scarf up a giant handful from the top of the colonized agaricus substrate block which has the white mycelium running through it. You mix that with casing soil that you’ve saturated. Then you spread that on top of the block. Then you pull up the plastic growing bag and fold the top over clipping it to the top of the carton edges so that the humidity builds in the bag along with CO2 building. That process is 5 days.

One thing about this project, it teaches you patience. Of course you look in on the box every day to make certain the bag is still upright and clipped. You spray it daily. It is a great gift idea for the gardener during the winter.

At the end of the five-day period you “Flush” it. Open up the plastic bag and pull it up and over the edges of the box and spritz the whole top with COLD water.

This shocks the mycelium into fruiting – making mushrooms.

Trust me, it is a fascinating process. Visit www.willowmushrooms.com for more details.

It has kept me entertained from December 10^th until now and will for several weeks. I will be picking more tomorrow – they are getting bigger and bigger.

I apologize that the pictures are in reverse order - but you get the idea - this is a fun project.