My daughter Grace loves mushrooms. She eats them raw, sauteed, on pizza, in soup, just about any way she can get them. She also loves to cook with me. Baking is her favorite, and we like to make sourdough bread together. What do the two have in common? Not much really, except, my wife Carrie was looking for a sourdough starter online one day and accidentally bumped into a mushroom growing kit by Forest Origins. Forgetting why she was on line in the first place, she was struck with an idea to buy the kit for Grace’s upcoming birthday.
Brown Thumbs
The two things you need to know about me and Carrie and gardening are this: Carrie often has these grandiose visions of planting a large garden in the back yard. One with artichokes. asparagus and other unconventional (not, corn or beans) plants. The problem is, Carrie likes the idea of having a garden, but doesn’t actually like to garden. At all!
Every year, we buy a tomato plant or two and a couple of pepper plants. Over the years, I bet we have spent close to $200 on vegetable and fruit producing plants and we have never harvested a single tomato, pepper, or strawberry. Not one! Seriously, I’m not exaggerating!
So when Carrie told me she was going to buy Grace a mushroom growing kit for her birthday, I was skeptical to say the least. But Grace isn’t either one of us. Maybe she’d actually get the mushrooms to grow.
Gave it a Try
Last week, Grace opened her presents and the mushroom kit was among them. She was pretty excited to get started so we watched the videos. You can watch the first one below. Grace followed all of the steps without any help from me.
It only took a couple of days for the baby mushrooms to sprout or whatever it is they do. About 48 hours after they sprouted they looked like this……
A couple of days later……
After six days……
We May Have a Green Thumb in the Family
The mushroom growing kit requires you to mist them between five and ten times per day. Grace is one of those focused, responsible oldest kid types. She always follows through on a project, and she took great care of her mushrooms.
Finally it was time to harvest the mushrooms.
The cool thing about this mushroom kit is you can use it over and over again. Here is a video showing you how to do just that.
The Take Away
- The kit costs about $20 which makes it a reasonable gift for a friend or family member who likes to garden or enjoys mushrooms
- Oyster mushrooms are sometimes difficult to find in your local store and when you can find them they are usually pretty expensive. Even if you get only one use from the kit, the experience and resulting mushrooms are well worth the $20 expense. But we do expect to get several more harvests.
- We sauteed the mushrooms and made Oyster Mushroom and Egg Fried Rice. Click here to sign up for my newsletter where you can find the recipe. I had never had them sauteed and was surprised at how meaty and delicious they were.
- I would absolutely purchase this kit for a friend or one of their children. For more information on Forest Origins, visit their website by clicking here. There are other mushroom growing kits available, but this company had pretty good reviews and a reasonable price.
I hope this article inspires you to try growing your own mushrooms at home. It was easier than I thought it would be and it was the very first thing that we as a family have ever eaten that we had grown ourselves. I know, it’s sad but true. I’m looking forward to Grace’s next harvest and I’m looking forward from hearing from you, too. If you have any questions or comments please give me a holler.
Brian at Daddy Go To Timeout
P.S.
I will be posting a recipe for the Oyster Mushroom and Egg Fried Rice in my next newsletter, which comes out on 4/12/19. so sign up quick!
