Growing Mushrooms at Home: 7 Steps to Success

Our Mushroom Growing Overview Guide: 

We’ve tested the best cultivation practices to provide you with the guidance that beginner home growers need to achieve results. (See cultivar-specific guides here.)

• Step 1: Choose Your Mushroom Liquid Culture
• Step 2: Gather Your Materials & Select a Growing Spot
• Step 3: Sterilization
• Step 4: Inoculation
• Step 5: Colonization
• Step 6: Fruiting
• Step 7: Harvest!

At Good Mushroom, we’ve tried and tested the best mushroom cultivation practices to provide you with the information and guidance you need to achieve the best results growing mushrooms right in your home.

Our grow guides are specific to each cultivar we offer — including shiitake, oyster, chaga and Lion’s Mane — with step-by-step instructions for sterilization, inoculation, colonization, fruiting and harvesting to maximize your successful flush (a harvest is referred to as a “flush” in mycology circles).

In this overview, let’s take a look at the beginner-friendly Lion’s Mane culture and its grow guide first as an example of the ideal practices for growing mushrooms at home.

Step 1: Choose the Type of Mushroom You Want to Grow

You can cultivate a wide variety of gourmet and medicinal mushrooms at home, with some of the most popular choices including White Button, Oyster, Enoki, Wine Cap, Shiitake and Lion’s Mane mushrooms.

Beginner mushroom growers like Oyster and Lion’s Mane mushrooms, for example, because they’re reasonably simple to grow – taking just 2 to 4 weeks from planting to harvesting.

You can choose the mushroom to grow based on your taste preferences, the temperature where you live, and space available for cultivation.

Step 2: Gather Your Materials and Pick a Growing Spot

While many of the different mushroom types have specific needs for successful flushes, most thrive using a lot of the same ingredients and climatic conditions.

For example, you’ll need the following ingredients and space to grow Lion’s Mane mushrooms.

• • Lion’s Mane Liquid Culture Syringe
  • Good Mushroom Starter Grain Bag
  • Good Mushroom Substrate Grow Bag

Potting soil is not the best medium to grow Lion’s Mane mushrooms.

Good Mushroom Lion’s Mane Liquid Culture Syringe:

Live mycelium (white mushroom roots) suspended in a sterilized nutrition liquid is known as liquid culture. The solution is contained in a syringe for easy and sterile application of the liquid culture into your starter grain bag.

Good Mushroom Starter Grain Bag:

Our grain bag is specially made to enable easy and fast colonization, which is when strong and healthy mushroom roots are developing but there are no visible fruiting bodies (mushrooms) yet.

Grain bags typically contain nutrient-enriched grains – including wheatberry, rye berry, millet, popcorn, oats, sorghum, birdseed and more – that create the perfect conditions for mycelium to freely spread.

Good Mushroom Substrate Grow Bag:

We recommend that you use hardwood substrate, a material that fungi grow well in. Straw, hardwood sawdust, wood chips, coffee grounds, and composted manure are a few common substrates used in mushroom production.

A Sanitized, Consistently Cool, and Moist Area With Indirect Sunlight:

Having the correct mushroom cultivation materials is important – but environmental conditions also play a huge role in a healthy mushroom. Your growing area’s temperature and humidity levels can either produce wonderful flushes or stall the mushroom growth altogether.

Most mushrooms grow best in temps between 55–70 degrees Fahrenheit.

The ideal environment for Lion’s Mane mushrooms is 65 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit with a relative humidity of between 85–95%.

The physical attributes of Lion’s Mane are greatly affected by humidity levels. A healthy Lion’s Mane mushroom is large, white, and covered with hairlike structures called “teeth”. Too low humidity can stall the growth of your fruit, cause it to yellow, and prohibit the teeth from forming. 

To produce a plentiful mushroom harvest, consider cultivating your crop in a climate-controlled garage, cool basement, or other indoor room because it will be easier to regulate moisture and temperature here.

Basic Tools Required:

• Gloves
• Isopropyl Alcohol Scissors
• Precision Knife
• Strong Adhesive Tape or Sealer

Other optional materials you could use include a hair net, face mask, and – for more advanced growers – a monotube for bulk mushroom cultivation.

Step 3: Sterilization

Use isopropyl alcohol to sanitize all of your mushroom cultivation tools — including the liquid culture syringe and needle, entire starter grain bag, and your workspace.

This is important because the bacteria, molds, and other spores that would compete with your mushrooms for space and food, stopping them from growing faster and bigger, are killed during sterilization.

NOTE: while these cases are rare, if grown in a dirty and non-sanitized environment, eating mushrooms that are contaminated with dangerous bacteria could make you sick and even lead to health issues. So don’t forget about this step!

Step 4: Inoculation

Inoculation is the process of introducing live mycelium into the starter grains.

To do this:

• • Shake the liquid culture syringe thoroughly to mix the mycelium

• • Attach the needle to the syringe, and inject 2–3 ml of liquid culture through the self-healing port of the starter grain bag in 3 to 4 different locations within the grain

• • Re-sterilize the self-healing port with isopropyl alcohol and place the starter grain bag in a dark room temperature location, and let it be

Step 5: Colonization

During this stage, the mycelium begins to take over the inoculated grain by feeding on the nutrients. This is evident when you see the white root-like structures begin to form inside the starter grain bag.

Depending on the type of mushroom you’re growing and the surrounding conditions, this could take a few weeks. Be patient and keep checking the starter grain jar or bag for indications of colonization.

Take these actions when colonizing:

• • After 30% to 40% of the grain has been colonized (turning white), gently redistribute the mycelium by massaging the bag to help increase the rate of growth and coverage. Let it sit until it is 100% colonized before proceeding to the next step. Depending on the mushroom variety, this could take a number of days. It is important to remain patient until all of the grain has been completely covered in mycelium.

• • Thoroughly sanitize your gloved hands, workspace, colonized grain bag, substrate grow bag, and scissors. You can do this by spraying your gloved hands with isopropyl alcohol, spraying the entire outside of the bags, and scissors.

• • Break up the grain and mycelium by shaking or massaging the bag until all of the grain is loose.

• • Open the very top of the substrate grow bag by cutting it with sanitized scissors above the micron filter, and empty the contents of the starter grain into the top of the substrate grow bag.

• • Seal the top of the substrate grow bag above the micron filter with a strong adhesive tape (packing tape) or heat sealer.

• • Distribute the starter grain thoroughly by shaking and massaging the substrate grow bag until the colonized grain has been thoroughly mixed with the substrate. This introduces your mushroom mycelium to the nutrients and moisture in the substrate. The mycelium will begin to colonize the substrate nutrient similar to the starter grain.

• • Place the bag in the same colonization location that you used for the starter grain bag (dark and at a temperature of 70–75 degrees F), and do not disturb for 5 to 7 days. You will not open the substrate bag again until it is fully colonized and ready for the fruiting stage.

• • After 5 to 7 days (or 30%–40% colonized), gently massage and redistribute the mycelium throughout the substrate grow bag and place it back in the colonization location. It is important to allow your substrate bag to fully colonize before moving it to fruiting conditions.

Step 6: Fruiting

Visible mushrooms are going to begin appearing on the substrate at this point of cultivation, but you must first induce fruiting for this to happen.

So, once the substrate grow bag is fully colonized:

• • Sanitize your gloved hands, the entire outside of the substrate grow bag, sharp knife, and work area.

• • Lay the bag on its side, upright, or hang in your fruiting location (ex: countertop tent), and with the knife cut an “X” in the bag. The ideal location for this cut is the center of the bag that is facing up if its laid on its side, or facing out if it is hung or upright. Be careful to not cut too deep and damage the mycelium. This will introduce FAE (fresh air exchange) and space for the fruit to grow while helping to keep the mycelium and new mushrooms moist.

NOTE: Your growing locations should have indirect sunlight for 8–12 hours per day, temperatures from 65 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and a relative humidity of 85–90%. You can achieve this level of humidity by misting the inside sides of your countertop tent (if purchased –  optional) and outside of the substrate grow bag with distilled water, 3 to 4 times daily. Avoid spraying the fruit directly.

Step 7: Harvest Your Mushrooms

Your Lion’s Mane will begin fruiting by presenting small puffy balls, which rapidly grow to the size of a grapefruit or larger within a few days. Simply hold and twist the Lion’s Mane fruit from the substrate. Twisting will help leave as much mycelium behind for future flushes.

Other mushrooms, like Oysters, will begin to form caps. When these caps are nearly fully opened, flat, and beginning to separate from the stem, it’s time to harvest. Cap edges will start to get wavy and release spores beyond this point. The quality of your mushrooms is much better if harvested before this happens.

Fresh mushrooms have a short shelf life, lasting only a few days before they go bad. So, eat your mushrooms shortly after harvesting, or store them in a breathable container in the refrigerator to reap the benefits of your patient cultivation efforts for longer!

Good Mushroom: Your Go-to Store for All Things Mushroom Growing

Do you want to start growing mushrooms at home but lack the necessary equipment? We’ve got you covered.

Good Mushroom is a leading online retailer of premium mushroom cultivation materials in North America, providing a selection of customizable mushroom grow kits, top-quality liquid culture syringes, grow bags, and all other cultivation supplies you need to grow popular medicinal and gourmet mushrooms, including Blue Oyster, Golden Enoki, Lion’s Mane, and Pioppino.

Order your favorite mushroom cultivation materials today, and we’ll deliver them right to your door within a few days so you can begin your growing process.

Good Mushroom offers fast order processing, excellent customer service, and free standard shipping on orders over $150.