Mushroom kits have actually had a fair amount of bad press recently with many critics claiming they provide very poor value for money when you compare the yields of the mushroom kits with the actual price of the mushrooms in the shops. I find this an extremely unfair comparison and feel that it really is wrong to simply compare the two with the amount of mushrooms that they produce.
You can buy mushroom growing kits for just a few different species of mushroom – you can find button mushroom grow kits and you may get oyster mushroom grow kits. These two are the most common and will be purchased at most garden centres and usually on garden centre websites. However you can 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 give you around �5 worth of mushrooms (if grown in the perfect environment, and depending on 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 are usually grown in other countries and imported across, where it is so much cheaper to allow them to grow them. Then theres Moon Chocolate Bar that in a kit you obtain a box and obtain the substrate (compost or straw) in addition to a small bag of spawn. Once you buy mushrooms from the shop you aren’t left with excellent compost for your garden (mushroom compost is among the most expensive and nutritious forms of compost as the mushrooms break down and recycle many nutrients present in the substrate). And then there’s the fact that you’re growing mushrooms yourself – surely the excitement and fun factor are worth spending money on too.
For me mushroom growing kits are an excellent way of growing your own mushrooms and also if sometimes they don’t offer amazing affordability in comparison with the shop price you will learn so much from carrying it out yourself and will probably take great pride in growing and eating your personal mushrooms. Maybe even once you’ve learned a bit more about cultivating mushrooms you could cut out the middleman and find your own substrate (straw, newspaper, manure) and purchase or make your own mushroom spawn. This is where you can get real affordability too, growing hundreds of pounds worth of mushroom from literally a couple of pounds investm