Mushroom Cultivation for Beginners: The Complete Guide to Growing Your Own Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms at Home, Indoors and Outdoors. | + BONUS: 10 Beginner-Friendly Low Investment DIY Projects

This book provides a clear and exhaustive step-by-step guide to growing a variety of gourmet and medicinal mushrooms from your own home with low investment, and no stress! Following the instructions and recommendations in this indispensable guide will help you to bypass all the common pitfalls and avoid wasting time making costly mistakes through trial and error.

As you embark on growing your own mushrooms there will be a number of decisions to be made; including which mushrooms to grow, what is the best substrate to use, whether should you make your own spawn, which equipment you need, and many other questions. This guide will furnish you with all these answers and more.

If you have already done some online research on mushroom cultivation, you have probably read that you will need to set up a special lab at home and invest in sophisticated tools and equipment. In reality, however, this is not the case! Growing mushrooms naturally is in fact a low-tech, low-investment process. It is quite possible that you already have everything you need at home – it just needs a few tweaks!

This book will provide you with step-by-step instructions on how to build all the equipment you need in a quick, fuss-free and cost-effective way. All you need is a small number of readily available materials to build your Still Air Box, Shotgun Fruit Chamber, and a few other basic pieces, and you are on your way!

Finding a wide variety of mushrooms in the supermarket can be a real challenge. You will most likely find the usual types, such as oyster and white button mushrooms, as supermarkets often stock the most common varieties; however, other varieties can be tough to find.

If you want to grow (and eat) something different, this book is for you. This informative guide by Michael York will provide you with precise growth parameters, nutritional properties, growing tips, and beginner-friendly cultivation techniques. Everything you need to know for a wide variety of beginner-friendly gourmet and medicinal mushrooms is covered. From the most common Oyster, Shiitake, or Portobello, to cordyceps, Reishi, Maitake, this book covers a vast variety of different mushroom types you can easily grow at home!

While growing mushrooms, it is common to encounter some problems along the way, whether it be lack, or indeed excess of moisture, poor air exchange, pests and diseases, and other issues.

This book will guide you on how to quickly and easily identify when there is a problem with your culture, as well as how to resolve this and other cultivation issues that may emerge, so you will always enjoy healthy and productive mushroom harvests.

The choice of what type of spawn to use depends on the type of mushroom being grown, the type of substrate, and the specific growing method used. Buying pre-made spawn from a supplier can be expensive, and some spawn types might not be readily available in your area. The good news is that making spawn at home is very easy and requires no costly equipment.

This book provides instructions on how to choose the best spawn for your project and how to make your own spawn without needing too much space or having to invest in building your specialized lab at home. You will also learn about all the main types of spawn (sawdust, grain, plug, liquid, and many others) and how to produce them, including DIY instructions on building the required equipment.

To grow mushrooms successfully, it is crucial that you select the right substrate. Growing mushrooms using substrate is equivalent to growing plants in soil. As they grow, mushrooms will receive all the nutrients they need from the substrate itself. In the same way, different plants require soils with different nutrient properties, different mushrooms will prefer specific types of substrates in order to grow and thrive.

This book will cover in detail all the most widely used substrates and the preferred substrates for each type of mushroom. Also included are comprehensive instructions on how to prepare each of the substrates for inoculation. Step-by-Step illustrated instructions on performing pasteurization and sterilization at home are also provided….so you can ensure a contamination-free mushroom harvest!

Depending on the substrate, inoculation may involve cutting wedges into a wooden stump, drilling holes into a log or mixing spawn into bags. Outdoor methods can generally be affected with little risk of introducing contaminants such as molds. In contrast, most indoor methods require the substrate to be inoculated in a sterile environment first to avoid contaminating the substrate.

This book will provide you with clear guidelines and instructions for the most widely used substrates to ensure a successful inoculation, incubation and fruiting of your mushrooms. For the indoor methods, the book will also provide illustrated step-by-step DIY instructions on how to build the most common types of fruiting chambers (Shotgun Fruiting Chamber, Martha Grow Tent, Monotub, Mini farm, etc..)

It is critical to harvest your mushrooms at the right time, particularly if you want to generate spore prints to grow more mushrooms. It is important to be aware that each mushroom has a different harvesting time, and if you leave the mushrooms to grow bigger, you will eventually end up with poorer-quality mushrooms. Once picked, fresh mushrooms generally have a short shelf life, however, fortunately, you can extend the shelf life of your mushrooms by storing them correctly.

This book will provide guidance on the recommended stage at which each mushroom type should be harvested and how the mushroom should look when ready to be picked! A chapter is also dedicated to various options to store your mushrooms, such as drying techniques, freezing, and other tips and techniques.