Blue Oyster mushroom grow bucket

This is a 1kg gourmet mushroom grow bucket, it will be ready to sprout mushrooms that you can eat within 2-6 weeks if you treat it well.

When your bucket arrives, the first thing you need to do is be patient. The bucket needs to be kept somewhere warm and dark to allow the mycelium (the roots of the fungus) to grow - you need to make the organism think that it's underground by placing it somewhere cosy. This is similar to the germination stage when growing plants from seed.

When the substrate has been fully colonised by mycelium, it will look all fluffy and white. You might be able to see some outline of the straw substrate but there should be no patches that the mycelium hasn't touched. This process can take up to 2 weeks. The next step is to introduce the bucket to a new environment so the organism knows it's time to grow mushrooms.

Unlike plants that need carbon dioxide to live, fungi need oxygen - just like humans do. Fungi inhale oxygen and exhale CO2 so it's important that your grow bucket is placed somewhere airy when it's ready for fruiting. Mushrooms grow towards light so a windowsill is a good place for your bucket. They can also do well in the bathroom if there is good ventilation and light. When you've found a good spot, you need to remove the tape that is covering the four holes around the bucket.

Oyster mushrooms are fairly low maintenance but they do need a good amount of moisture in the air, you can achieve this by spraying water onto the bucket daily. Be sure to not spray directly onto any fruiting bodies as they don't like it! Blue oyster mushrooms also like to be kept between 12 and 18 degrees Celsius but if you're growing indoors don't worry so much about this.

If you pay close attention and make sure your bucket is warm, moist and getting plenty of fresh air, you should see tiny mushrooms or "pins" forming in 7-14 days. It's important after this development to check on your mushrooms daily as they can grow incredibly fast, from pinning to full formed mushrooms can be as quick as 7 days. The ideal time to harvest your mushrooms is when the caps have started to flatten and spread out, shortly after this the mushrooms will release their spores and start to die.