Mushrooms

Normal or Magic? (Just kidding) - I buy them in; saves time Aldi are usually pretty good on price

I did once buy one of those mushroom boxes. It wasn't very successful - I only got one mushroom (but it was huge).

I did have more success using the spore stuff from eBay that comes on dowel plugs and which you put in to holes you've drilled in to a log.

I've always wanted to grow them!
But have never really had a suitable place to put the kit.

carty said:

Just thought I may be able to save a few quid

Click to expand...

In Sainsbury's, and probable elsewhere, the loose mushrooms are half the price of those in trays. Growing your own is interesting but not money saving in my experience.

My folks are avid gardeners, and they used to have 'spent' mushroom compost delivered, to use a mulch.

It was never 'spent'! Gazillions of spores would still be at work, and we would harvest mushrooms for days - weeks! - some the size of dinner plates if we didn't notice them when they were still small.

As a kid I saw it as some kind of miracle! This was over 30 years ago - I don't know if they still sell the stuff, or indeed where it even came from.

Happy days!

Snapsy said:

I don't know if they still sell the stuff, or indeed where it even came from.

Click to expand...

We used to get the old mushroom compost from a mushroom farm near us, and as you said mushrooms for a few weeks till the spores disappeared.

From button to big ones, mushrooms are around $10.00 a kg here in the supermarkets. So they are not that expensive to buy.

As snapsy said mushroom compost used to produce loads of mushrooms. We still get mushroom compost for the lottie but I have not had anything significant grow. More telling is the fact that we do not have any growing in the corner of the car park where we store the mushroom compost. There may be other factors at play. We got some to grow from one of those grow kits but it was in the cupboard under the stairs. Been a long time since there was "space" anywhere like that. We have tried a few times since moving to Cov with no success. IMHO home growing in your average suburban is not worth the trouble. On the other hand the best mushrooms we ever had were collected from the field early in the morning. Sadly Dad in law long ago passed over and I would not trust anyone else with identifying edible ones so that is not an option.

I tried growing my own from a kit bought in the garden centre. The pack of "stuff" was suspicious, smelly and I really don't want any more of that. From two boxes I got one mushroom and I decided that trays of them from the supermarket is a much cheaper way to go. Also you can always buy them at the supermarket whereas you have to wait for them to appear when growing them.