4 Easiest Mushrooms to Grow for Beginners

Growing herbs and vegetables at home for personal consumption is something many households do. But did you know that herbs and vegetables aren’t the only things that you can grow at home? Mushrooms are another plant-based food source that you can easily and conveniently grow at home.

Mushrooms are a staple of the human diet and have been a part of numerous recipes from many cultures around the world for centuries. In recent years, their popularity has skyrocketed as more and more people add them to their diets to take advantage of their high antioxidants or as a plant-based replacement for meat.

In this post, we take a closer look at some of the easiest mushrooms to grow at home as well as how you can go about growing mushrooms as a beginner to help you get started on your own mushroom growing journey!

Benefits of Growing Your Own Mushrooms

If you’re new to mushroom growing, you might be wondering why exactly anyone would rather grow their own mushrooms at home instead of simply getting them from the grocery store or online.

In reality, there are many benefits to growing your own mushrooms, such as:

Freshness and Flavor

When you grow your own mushrooms, you can harvest and cook them as soon as they are ripe. This gives you greater control over how fresh the mushrooms you consume are — and also allows you to enjoy greater depth of flavor that you can only get from fresh mushrooms!

Cost Savings

The initial start-up costs of growing your own mushrooms can be relatively high, as you’ll need to invest in equipment such as growing bags and cultures. However, once you have your basic equipment set up, you can produce a continuous supply of mushrooms from home. This can lead to significant cost savings in the long term as compared to if you were to buy your mushrooms regularly from the grocery store. 

Variety

When you grow your own mushrooms at home, you can also enjoy greater variety in terms of the types of mushrooms you can enjoy.

There are many less common varieties that you may not be able to find in grocery stores and the only way to try these unique mushrooms may be to grow them yourself. 

4 of the Easiest Mushrooms to Grow for Beginners

As a beginner, it’s easy to get caught up in the countless different varieties of mushrooms and to feel demoralized because you don’t know where to start your mushroom growing journey. Because of that, we’ve come up with a list of 4 of the easiest mushrooms to grow for beginners to hopefully provide you with a good idea of where you can start.

1. Oyster Mushrooms

Oyster mushrooms can come in a variety of different subspecies including the blue oyster, the elm oyster and the pearl oyster. Generally, this family of mushrooms is incredibly easy to grow as they do not require significant attention or involvement from you and are thus relatively low-maintenance.

In addition, they grow very quickly and will typically produce multiple flushes over a period of a few weeks. This means that your yield from oyster mushroom growing is likely to be high and being able to harvest frequently can be a very satisfying feeling, especially as a beginner. Oyster mushrooms are also very versatile and can grow in a variety of substrates, with some growers even having success with growing them in coffee grounds. 

2. Lion’s Mane Mushrooms

Lion’s mane mushrooms are a popular option amongst foodies for their meaty texture that is reminiscent of crab meat. They can be prepared in countless different ways depending on your preferences, making them a popular mushroom in the kitchen. 

They are one of the easiest mushrooms to grow as well because they are an incredibly aggressive grower and can colonize an entire growing bag in a matter of days or weeks. They also provide very high yields once they start to fruit and are very resilient in different environmental conditions, meaning that they don’t require the high level of care that some other mushroom species require. 

3. Shiitake Mushrooms 

Shiitake mushrooms are also a beginner-friendly option for mushroom growing. These mushrooms grow well on wood-based substrates such as hardwood or sawdust blocks. As an added bonus, shiitake mushrooms also have a great umami flavor and can be used to add richness to many dishes including soups, pastas and more. 

Once they have colonized a particular substrate, shiitake mushrooms can continue to fruit over many cycles without much maintenance. This makes them incredibly cost-effective when it comes to the quantity of mushrooms you are able to obtain from a single liquid culture. 

4. King Trumpet Mushrooms

Like the other types of mushrooms on this list, king trumpet mushrooms are also incredibly easy to grow because of their aggressive growth rates, high yields as well as low maintenance requirements. 

However, one thing that sets king trumpet mushrooms apart is that they have a cascading growth pattern. This means that they tend to form multiple clusters of mushrooms over time, allowing for extended harvest periods. This can also enable you to enjoy fresh mushrooms for an extended time since you won’t need to harvest a large batch of mushrooms all at once. 

Easiest Way to Grow Mushrooms for a Beginner

As a beginner, the easiest way to grow mushrooms is to keep things simple at the start. You don’t need to invest in expensive equipment or elaborate setups. Instead, start with just a single grow bag and just one type of mushroom. 

From there, you can experiment with growing techniques and find out if the mushroom you’ve grown is one that suits your tastes. Once you have a better idea of what you enjoy, you can then branch out into growing different varieties of mushrooms. 

Grow Your Own Mushrooms at Home with Good Mushroom

Good Mushroom offers complete mushroom growing kits that contain all the necessary supplies you will need to grow your first mushrooms, including liquid culture syringes, growing bags and dispersing needles. Our kits also include detailed growing instructions and comprehensive guides to help you succeed with no prior experience necessary.

Browse our online store today to find everything you will need to grow mushrooms at home easily and conveniently as a beginner!