Detailed Instructions

Get It Started

Place your kit in an area with good air flow and ambient light. Peel off the round sticker on the front of the kit. This is where your mushrooms will grow. Most oyster mushrooms also prefer cooler temperatures, so if you can indulge them with 60-degree temperatures, go for it! But they're also very resilient, so no worries if you're like us, growing mushrooms in 90-degree Brooklyn apartments. For our oyster mushroom strains, we find the most important thing is providing a good air flow. If they don't get enough oxygen, the mushrooms can get a bit leggy, with long, tough stems.

Spritz the Kit

Generously spray the “X” several times a day with water using the spray bottle. After about 4–6 days, you will start seeing mushroom “pins” develop. How much you mist depends on the humidity in your area. Oyster mushrooms prefer a very humid environment, but again, they're robust, so don't feel nervous if you live in a dry area. We recommend giving your kit a thorough spritz at least twice a day, but we tend to spritz ours whenever we think of it or walk by them; they just seem to love it!

Watch Them Grow

Continue to spray the mushrooms. At this point, your mushrooms will grow fast (they might even double in size every day!) To be honest, this is our favorite part. They go from tiny little pins to big beautiful mushrooms in just a few days. It really doesn't get old to watch. At this stage, you should maintain the humidity you're providing by continuing to spritz the mushrooms and give them plenty of fresh air circulation. Depending on the amount and quality of light, your mushrooms may take on different colors. Blue oyster mushrooms, for example, can appear anywhere from pale gray to chestnut brown to a slate blue (of course!)

Harvest Time

About 5 days after the pins form, your mushrooms will be ready to harvest. Cut the cluster off right at the base just before the caps completely unfurl and flatten out. Watch them carefully at this point because they can go from a little underripe to overripe in a matter of hours! It's still fine to cook and eat them if you harvest them after the caps turn upward a bit, but they'll be more tender if you catch them before they flatten out. If you leave them a bit too long you might also notice a build up of spores. You can clean them up with a damp paper towel; just dry not to stir them up into the air.

Future Harvests

You can repeat the steps above to get additional harvests of mushrooms. Just how many harvests you can get depends on your climate, the size of the first harvest, and the will of the mushroom itself. Often you can get the second flush to fruit right from the same spot, but you if the area seems a bit disturbed from the first harvest, you can tape up the first "X", and cut a new "X" on the back of the kit. Keep spritzing it, and soon enough, you should see some more mushroom pins start to form.