Growing Oyster Mushrooms

Generally, there is no slump in oyster mushroom availability at the supermarket all year round, and wild oyster mushrooms have long foraging seasons; in Canada, foraging starts in the spring, peaking towards the fall, and in Central Mexico, during the rainy season, from May, and peaking in July through October. Nevertheless, one of my daughters got two oyster mushroom grow kits as a gift, and needless to say, everyone had lots of fun-gi (LOL), watching them grow, and of course, cooking and eating them.

These particular kits came in a self-contained format, inside a box with a plastic sheet on one side, and a spraying bottle. The “farmer” only needs to cut an “X” on the plastic sheet, place the box in indirect light, and start spraying the growing surface with water. One box was for the familiar grey oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus). After a few days, some texture appeared (photo below, left); it did not look very flattering, but from that point, the mushrooms grew, as seen below in the second to fourth photos, taken respectively two, three and four days after the first one:

The other kit was for pink oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus djamor), as seen in the photo at the top of this post. They were really something else, growing elegantly in their showy flamingo-like shade; my daughter set up her camera to capture the process in three time-lapsed series, each over only a few hours:

The slide show below, shows one mushroom cooked in tempura batter, several on focaccia dough with truffle salt right before hitting the oven, a few as a topping on melted cheese tacos, and finally, a batch that was stir-fried as a filling for quick quesadillas:

Mushroom grow kits are not cheap, but they may provide a source for less-common varieties, organically produce tasty mushrooms, and since I have never been brave enough to forage mushrooms, I found seeing them grow indoors from tiny blubs to behemoths to be a good experience to become familiar with their appearance at different stages of development.

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