What is the Easiest Mushroom to Grow?

If you are here on this page of our website, you are probably looking for the easiest mushroom that you grow by yourself with minimal effort and enjoy the experience of growing your own food.

In general, the shiitakes block fruit better, even if you place them outside. The blocks will continually fruit before they ‘exhaust’ the nutrients. Other mushrooms grow kits such as lion’s mane and oysters can be grown easily as well.

The exciting aspect of using growing kits is that it is simple, not minding the mushroom strain you want to grow. You can grow chestnuts, shiitakes, lion’s mane, and different species of oyster mushrooms. You can as well try reishi and pioppino mushrooms. The best approach is to try a grow kit before you go more in-depth with other methods. That way, you can test if you love using it before you increase to bigger grows.

Easiest Mushrooms to Grow

Oyster

These species of mushrooms can quickly be grown with many different techniques. For instance, you can grow them on toilet paper or coffee grounds for a start. It is advisable to use 50% coffee grounds and 50% sawdust if you grow oyster mushrooms on coffee grounds. This optimizes aeration and permits the mycelium enough space to breathe through its lifecycle.

Wine Cap

This process of growing is straightforward, and it can take you about eight weeks with little input, having added the spawn. The most crucial thing is, to begin with, fresh hardwood chips and wine cap spawn of high quality. You need to choose a shady spot.

Shiitakes on logs

This method has been the primary means of cultivating mushrooms in the backyard over the past 50 decades.

Several commercial growers and homesteaders have resorted to this cultivation method and have been honing the systems, ideas and, strains relating to this method. The process may be intensive at the onset as it requires that you source the hardwood logs, drill holes, fill the holes with plug spawn and subsequently wax it to seal if from the environment.

Shiitake Mushroom on log – Image by: Tom

After completing this initial stage, you only need to allow the mycelium to work its wonders and wait for 14 months before the mushroom fruit.

Cultivation log is best done on hardwoods such as sugar maple, oak, and beech. Other logs may work but will not generate quality yields. The best option is to pick logs that range from three to eight inches for this method.

You will need to drill 1 inch deep holes for every 6 inches and then tap the shiitake plug spawn into those holes using a hammer. Rotate the log two inches and drill the holes again every 6 inches. Try to offset the holes so the drilling can form a diamond pattern. Fill every hole with the shiitake plug spawn, and then wax over. The essence of the wax is to ensure the mycelium won’t dry out. Not only that, fungi will be prevented from getting into your log.