Mushroom Monday - Kits vs. Wild Mushrooms

Here are a few mushroom kits I've grown in the past compared to the same mushroom in the wild for this #mushroommonday

Here is a lion's mane kit I grew one year. These are a super easy kit to start out with and you can get multiple harvests from one grow block if you take care of it.

Towards the end of the block's life the lion's mane doesn't grow as large. This is probably because the fungi is exhausting its food source in the bag. This last flush stopped growing even though I hydrated it enough. Once lion's mane starts getting a tinge of yellow it becomes too tough to eat.

By contrast here is the wild version of lion's mane. They tend to grow in only one pom shape and have much larger spikes because they get more fresh air compared to a kit.

This is another closely related species called bear's head tooth. It basically tastes the same as lion's mane but just grows in a slightly different form. I have not seen kits for sale for bear's head tooth.

Another easy mushroom to grow from a kit is golden oyster. Here's one just starting to pin.

This kit I ended up watering too much and the mushrooms didn't get enough indirect light causing them to be slightly deformed.

Their deformed state looks interesting and they still tasted great. This kit eventually gave me five flushes of mushrooms. You just reseal the block and let it soak a bit in water then cut a new hole in the plastic to cause the air to create more pinning.

By contrast here are some golden oysters in the wild. They are quite common in Michigan and Wisconsin during spring and fall. As you can see their caps are more symmetrical than my home grown version because they got more fresh air and light.

This is a reishi kit just starting out. These kits are not quite as easy to grow and take quite a bit longer to grow than most mushroom kits. Basically you let it grow like this for a few weeks then cut open the bag to give them air to grow larger.

This is how they ended up looking. They stayed in their antler form because they didn't have enough time and fresh air to fan out. Often times this process takes years.

By contrast here are some wild ones that probably took many years to grow. These ones had a waterfall continuously misting them nearby with lots of fresh air.

Here's a tough kit to grow, blue oysters.

I was only able to get one flush out of this block and they ended up turning white towards the end. I suspect they need a cooler environment with even less indirect light to flourish.

Out in the wild they have much larger caps and they end up turning kind of gray towards full size. I may end up just sticking to growing lion's mane as they had the most growth out of one block and were the easiest to maintain.

That's all for now, thanks for looking :-)