Hi Jonathan,

depending on the strain, you can usually delay fruiting for a few weeks by either putting your growbags in the fridge, or by covering up the filter patch/air exchange and then putting them in a cool dark place.

Hope it works – worse case scenarios, like you said, is some happy friends 😉

Best wishes, Adam

Hi Michael, it depends what bags you are using – if they are proper mushroom cultivation bags with a filter patch you don’t need to cut any holes until you are ready to fruit the mushrooms.

If your bags don’t have filters then check out the reply I just left (13th June 2016) to another forum post about how you can help create good air exchange here: https://growmushroomsoncoffee.com/topic/how-full-do-you-fill-the-bags/#post-1446

Yes, you would need to have some form of air exchange..although you could prick a number of tiny holes around the bag it would be better to make your own filter patches to put on your bags instead as it will reduce the likelihood of contamination through the holes.

You can do this by sourcing some Tyvek material and then cutting it into small squares and sticking it over holes you cut in the top half of your grow bags, similar to how these bags sold on ebay in the US have been made:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Brown-Rice-Flour-Vermiculite-Mushroom-Substrate-Bag-with-Tyvek-Filter-12-bags-/271152102626

The Tyvek is a breathable membrane which will also keep out contamination and is normally sourced fairly easily as it is used in lots of applications..Tyvek overalls, Tyvek Envelopes, or Tyvek sheets for roofing

Judith asked:
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Hi,

Two questions arose when I viewed Module 2: one had been asked and answered previously on the forum. The second one is in follow up to the narrator’s remark that commercial growers in the Netherlands only use straw high in calcium. I’m assuming that means each type of substrate has it’s own set of nutrients in varying quantities; that being the case, do you know what coffee grounds bring to the table? Thanks very much, J.
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Hi Václav,
Nice to see your photo and I’m sure it’s the first of many successful crops to come!

It looks like it’s just some of the smaller pins that have dried out – probably after aborting (this means they stop growing part of the way during the growing process).

It’s quite normal for some of the small pins to stop growing, enabling others to grow bigger. I think you have the right conditions of humidity and temperature – the long stems and some of the aborted dried out mushrooms may have been caused by CO2 levels being too high at the start of fruiting (something we discussed in a Facebook message), but it looks like you have sorted this out as the caps spread out and grew properly in the end.

I suspect that the next bag(s) you put in that growing space will grow perfectly 😉

Hi Karla,

I’m so sorry – I have just seen your comment here all these months later – it seems we weren’t receiving forum notifications properly back in August/September last year.

Not sure if you’ve had a go at producing some cardboard spawn and found your way in the meantime, but here’s the answer to your questions in case:

1) it is cardboard, the type you get from cardboard boxes (apologies I think card may have two different meanings outside the UK)
2) to pasteurise the cardboard, you just use hot water, poured onto the card and left for 5 minutes, before carefully draining it and squeezing out any excess water.
3) after mixing them together, leave them in the warm for a couple of weeks until fully colonised

Hope this helps – it’s a great way of producing a bit of your own spawn from mushrooms you’ve just grown!

Maureen posted:

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I started growing pearl oyster mushrooms with a few suggestions from books I’d read.  I started with fresh spawn and coffee grounds in glass jars.  I was trying to do this in my apartment but I found once the jar had colonized I could get the mushrooms to grow because the air is too dry in my flat.

I decided it was a failure and took the whole thing to the worm bins in my basement.  I read that worms really like mycelium and thought it would be a nice treat for them.

a week later I walked by the worm bins and there was a huge hand sized oyster mushroom growing out the side of the worm bin. Since then I’ve just fed the mycelium from the top and pulled the spent coffee ground out from the bottom.

I will attempt to post a photo of this here.

You can see these at my Facebook page…..

This is Odd an Urban Aquaponic Farm..