Long jealous of other people’s bountiful gardens, I’m sad I can’t have my own garden (no place for it and the HOA rules won’t allow even a small balcony one). So when BTTR (it’s pronounced as “better” and stands for Back to the Roots) offered me a chance to grow mushrooms from an indoor kit, I was all over it.
It’s easy enough to set up the kit but for some reason I couldn’t get anything to grow the first go around. A couple of weeks later, on my second attempt with more frequent misting than the two times a day requirement, little pinheads of oyster mushrooms finally popped up.
Once those pinheads appear, the mushrooms really start to grow and fast too. In the photo sequence above, on the left is day 1. After 3 days, one small pinhead appeared. 5 days later is the photo in the middle, 24 hours after that is the photo on the right.
The oyster mushrooms that grew, looks a bit different that the ones in the product brochure. Instead of a cluster of mushrooms, mine just grew longer, sorta like king trumpet mushrooms with the big stems and all. Still, they taste amazing, so fresh and delicious.
Much to my surprise, after returning from a trip, I found mushrooms growing (see above photo) all by itself. No misting or anything, just sitting on the window sill. I thought it was all done with growing mushrooms but this happened twice after two different trips.
The soil used to grow the mushrooms is 100% recycled coffee grounds from Peet’s Coffee. Afterward, it’s rich compost for plants (when it’s done growing mushrooms for real), closing the recycling/sustainability loop.
Retail price for a kit is $19.95 to grow up to 1 lb/crop. Even though I can get fresh oyster mushrooms for a cheaper price at the local farmers market, it was fun to mist the little baby mushrooms and watch them grow. Not everyone is lucky enough to live in the SF Bay Area, in which case, nothing beats the freshness of growing your own.
Disclosure: I received the BTTR mushroom growing kit free of charge from the manufacturer for review. The opinions and experience with the product expressed herein are my own. There was no pay to say.
What a funny coincidence- I was just researching this kit! I’ve always loved the idea of cultivating my own exotic mushrooms… But the price does end up being so much greater than just buying them at the store, plus you have to put in the “labor” of raising them… It’s a cute idea, but not quite worth it if you already have access to ready-grown mushrooms.
wow, that is some fast growing! How much do you think you harvested, all told? I was looking into this; my mushroom access is a bit spottier
I’ve seen similar kits at the local farmer’s market and I’ve always wondered…it looks like a fun project!
Hannah – I agree on cost of the kit when there’s awesome fresh mushrooms readily available. But it was still fun and interesting to see the mushrooms growing.
radioactivegan -I didn’t weigh the mushrooms, but I got a good amount. It’s 100% satisfaction guaranteed, so if you have any problems, just contact the company.
Christina – I haven’t seen any at the farmers market but I would love to try a shiitake mushroom kit at some point.
Cool. I’ve always wanted to grow mushrooms but the kits I’ve seen, mainly at the farmers market and garden shows, were always so expensive — more like $49 instead of $20. For $20 I might be more likely to give it a try, though as Hannah pointed out, you can buy a lot of mushrooms for the same cost. It does look like fun, though.
I have seen these BTTR kits. So cool!
That’s so cool! I’ve never seen a mushroom growing kit before. I really want to try that now.
What!? This is so cool! I will definitely be trying this!
I am growing a shiitake mushroom patch as we speak. I have never done this before! Mine looks a lot bigger than yours is.
http://www.fungi.com/kits/index.html
Nice to know your initial venture into the mushroom cultivation world. Growing mushrooms indoors can really be a fun and a satisfying endeavor. It might be a bit expensive than buying commercial mushrooms in the market, but the journey and the experience of growing them yourself is priceless!