Sweet Summer Farm: Growing Oyster Mushrooms from Sow True Seed

While we were visiting the Mother Earth News Fair, one of the top booths we wanted to visit was the Sow True Seed booth. Sow True Seed is a local seed company in Asheville, NC and sells open pollinated, Heirloom, and Organic seed. Sow True Seed is our favorite seed company and we are happy to support them. Planning on a buying a large bag of seed for a huge vegetable garden we started toward the booth. As we were walking we remembered that Grand already has enough seed to last us through the Zombie Apocalypse so we decided against the seed. When we arrived at their booth we saw a number of Mushroom Bags. We decided to buy the Oyster Mushroom Bag because it was the fastest and easiest to grow. We thought growing mushrooms would be a fun experiment. If you want to try to grow some mushrooms yourself you can buy some from Sow True Seed. They have many other verities of Mushroom Bags along with Mushroom plugs that you use in logs.

When we got home we cut six slots in the bag so the mushrooms could get out. Within a few days, we noticed small mushrooms growing out of one side of the bag. Grand filled a spray bottle with water and we sprayed them with water two times a day. The next day the mushrooms had almost doubled in size continuing their growth outward. This growth continued for a week before we decided to eat our Oyster Mushrooms. By this time, the mushrooms were very large. The largest mushroom we recorded was 2 1/2" wide. We cooked our mushrooms in a cast-iron skillet with a pat of butter over medium heat until they are lightly brown. Below are some pictures of the mushrooms growing and cooking.