Cultivator Kit instructions
Our Cultivator Kit is aimed at getting people started growing mushrooms at home and is a more advanced but rewarding option than buying a pre-made grow box. It comes with spawn, substrate, grow bags and our cultivation zine and can be found on our web shop.
Using straw pellets is one of the easiest way to grow oyster mushrooms. Oysters love growing on straw because it has a lot of the same lignin-cellulose as trees, which they are used to breaking down in the wild. Using pelletized straw as a substrate is ideal because it is super clean, so you don't have to pasteurise it to avoid contamination.
With the ingredients in this kit you can make 3 grow bags that should each fruit 500 grams of Pearl Oyster Mushrooms. Follow the instructions in page 9 of the booklet to make your own spawn from the stems of the oyster mushrooms you grow. This will allow you to clone your culture and continue growing mushrooms from household waste for free!
Preparing your three bags:
Make your work area as clean as you can. Wipe down surfaces with antibacterial spray or similar. Tie up hair, wash hands , roll up sleeves and put a mask on. Read more about hygiene on pp. 14-15 of booklet.
Pour one third of the pellets (500 grams) into each grow bag so you end up with three bags with equal amounts of pellets in them. If you don't have scales, you can just eye ball this. The kit comes with two extra bags, one of the grow bags already has pellets in it and will be your third bag.
Break up the grainspawn (the bag of grain with mycelium growing on it). Pour one third of the spawn (100 grams) into each grow bag.
Mix the spawn and pellets by massaging the bags then pour 800 ml of tap water into each bag. If you don't have a measuring cup you might find a 750 ml plastic bottle that can be a reference.
Close the top of the bag as tightly as you can with a rubber band, piece of string or cable tie. Make sure you close it above the air filter strips.
Let bags sit for 15 minutes then massage substrate around to encourage water to be absorbed evenly throughout the pellets. Label bags with date and species.
Incubating your bags:
Place bags in a warm dark place. The ideal temperature is around 22 C. Airing or boiler cupboards are ideal.
The mycelium on the spawn will start digesting the straw. Monitor the bags every few days for contamination - more info on p. 14 of the booklet.
After 10-30 days (depending on conditions) the bags should be covered in white mycelium. At this point move to the fridge overnight. This cold shock mimics seasonal changes and encourages fruiting.
Fruiting and harvesting your bags:
Cut an 'X' 5 cm across with a clean sharp knife in the middle of the bag and place on your kitchen counter or near a window.
Mist the hole you've cut with a skoosher at least twice a day.
If your mushrooms look dry, put them somewhere cooler and skoosh them more frequently. If their stems look overly long, they need more oxygen - put them in a bigger room or somewhere draughty.
Within a week, small mushrooms should start to grow, a week later they'll be ready to harvest. Harvest before the edge of their cap starts to turn up.
Keep spraying your block and you should get a second harvest.
Cloning your mushrooms and disposing of your block
Follow the instructions in page 9 of the booklet to make your own spawn from the stems of the oyster mushrooms you grow. This will allow you to clone your culture and continue growing mushrooms from household waste for free!
When your bag has finished fruiting, cut it open and remove the myceliated block. You can use this to start an outdoor growing bed by burying it in a compost pile, or a pile of woodchip, leaf litter or other woody organic matter!
