Oyster Mushrooms

We have been doing a lot of gardening type projects over the last few months, one of them was a mushroom farm we purchased at Home Depot. This was an easy project that was relatively inexpensive. The same kit is available on Amazon. Here is a link:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00TUYGRU4/ref=mp_s_a_1_fkmr0_2_a_it?qid=1460222360&sr=8-2-fkmr0&keywords=mini+oyster+mushroom+growing+kit

Over the course of a couple of weeks we watched and waited, and for the first while we saw nothing. It said it would take ten days to grow, but after two weeks of nothing, we decided that we would probably need to soak it in cold water again.  However, the next morning the start of a mushroom showed up. 

    After some research we learned that when soaking the kit it is important to use cold water, as the shock of the temperature change is what spurs the growth.  We don't think our water had been cold enough.

     Here is a daily progression of the mushrooms as they grew. 

The first sign of growth after the two weeks of waiting.

The mushrooms double in size daily. This is the evening after the mushrooms first appeared. 

This is day 2 in the morning.

Day 3.

Day 4.

Day 5.

On day 6 they were ready to harvest. 

On day 7 we discovered that we had let them go a day too long.  As the caps start to fold upward the flavor is supposed to decrease, so it's best not to let them get this big. We figured this out just a little too late. The mushrooms still are edible however.

We ended up using this first batch in our homemade spaghetti sauce.  We are keeping the mini farm moist though, and are looking forward to our next batch.