If you would like to grow mushrooms yourself with instructions, white and brown mushrooms are a good choice, especially for beginners in mushroom cultivation. Since these types of mushrooms can be cultivated relatively easily in dark cellars, their targeted cultivation was already practiced at the court of the French King Louis XIV.
Where and how can you grow mushrooms?
Mushrooms can be grown in basements, bunkers, storage cellars or wine cellars, as they ideally thrive at uniform temperatures of 15 to 20 degrees Celsius. They need moist substrate such as straw bales or coconut substrate and the spores of the mushroom mycelium to ensure a successful harvest.
Climatic conditions as a basic requirement for cultivation
Mushrooms are ideally grown in uniform climatic conditions in order to achieve a high yield. That's why the following cultivation areas are particularly suitable for growing mushrooms:
- Basement rooms
- Bunker storage
- Storage cellar
- Wine cellar
Since a certain amount of humidity arises due to regular watering with larger cultivation dimensions, the selected room should not be structurally sensitive to humidity. Temperatures of around 15 to 20 degrees Celsius are ideal for white and brown mushrooms to thrive. Although mushrooms also grow in light, they also thrive in complete darkness and can therefore grow free of any weeds.
Prepare the substrate
Prepared boxes made of Styrofoam or cardboard with instructions are usually offered in stores, the substrate of which has already been inoculated with a mushroom mycelium. Some of these can also be set up directly in the apartment, as they usually have a lid to regulate the humidity. If you want to propagate mushrooms on a larger scale, boxes with spore-free coconut substrate or bales of straw can be used as a substrate for growing mushrooms.
The mycelium as an energy supplier for the fruiting bodies of the mushrooms
Divide the straw bales to a minimum height of around 15 to 20 centimeters and moisten them with water before placing them on shelves or racks in the planned growing space. Then inoculate the pads with the mushroom spores to initiate mycelium growth. This grows through a straw bale of mushrooms within about two to three weeks. Depending on the conditions, the fruiting bodies can then emerge from the bale for harvest, sometimes within a few days.
Cultivation without a starter culture
If you would like to experiment with cultivating edible mushrooms on a smaller scale, you can also try it without a commercial starter set. Since spores sometimes adhere to commercial mushrooms, you can apply leftover purchased mushrooms to a bale of straw or another moist substrate. Even with this technique, the desired success of growing mushrooms can sometimes be achieved.
Tips & Tricks
The beginnings of mushroom cultivation go back to the court of the French Sun King Louis XIV. He valued the edible mushroom so much that his court gardeners made the first attempts to grow forest and meadow mushrooms in cellars. Later, the branched catacombs beneath the metropolis of Paris were partly used for the commercial cultivation of mushrooms, as the conditions here were ideal in terms of temperature and humidity for cultivation.