Mushroom kits have actually had a good amount of bad press in recent times with many critics claiming they provide very poor affordability when you compare the yields of the mushroom kits with the specific price of the mushrooms in the shops. I find this a very unfair comparison and feel that it is wrong to simply compare both with the quantity of mushrooms that they produce.
You can buy mushroom growing kits for just a few different species of mushroom – you can aquire button mushroom grow kits and you will get oyster mushroom grow kits. These two are the most common and may be purchased at most garden centres and usually on garden centre websites. However you may also grow other varieties from more specialist websites, letting you grow your personal mushrooms like Shiitake, Portobello and much more. These kits usually cost around �5 to �10 and will probably provide you with around �5 worth of mushrooms (if grown in the perfect environment, and according to the variety as some mushrooms cost more then others in the shops).
I don’t understand why people moan when it costs more to buy a mushroom growing kit then it does to get the mushrooms themselves. The majority of the supermarket mushrooms are grown massively in bulk and so are usually grown in other countries and imported across, where it really is so much cheaper for them to grow them. Then theres Moon Bars that in a kit you get a box and obtain the substrate (compost or straw) in addition to a small bag of spawn. Once you buy mushrooms from a shop you aren’t left with excellent compost for the garden (mushroom compost is one of the most expensive and nutritious types of compost as the mushrooms breakdown and recycle many nutrients present in the substrate). And there’s the fact that you are growing mushrooms yourself – surely the excitement and fun factor are worth spending money on too.
In my opinion mushroom growing kits are an excellent way of growing your personal mushrooms and even if sometimes they don’t really offer amazing affordability in comparison with the shop price become familiar with so much from doing it yourself and will probably take great pride in growing and eating your personal mushrooms. Maybe even once you’ve learned a little more about cultivating mushrooms you can cut out the middleman and find your own substrate (straw, newspaper, manure) and purchase or make your own mushroom spawn. That’s where you can get real value for money too, growing hundreds of pounds worth of mushroom from literally a few pounds investm
