I swear, I looked away for just a moment, and pow! Mushrooms! The kit I started on the 19th has started producing, right on time. Unfortunately, the mushrooms are showing the long skinny “octopus” formation that indicates that they’re not getting enough light. I’m not yet sure what to do about that. I don’t think I have a spot that provides better indirect natural light. Time to get out the light-meter.

Besides learning that I needed more light for good fruiting, I’ve learned a few other things from that kit, not the least of which were to use a humidity tent and to get the coffee grounds pretty damp. (They’re really not all that hydrated when they come out of the espresso machine.)  That was probably the major problem with the batch I started from grocery-store oyster mushrooms. I should have hydrated the grounds. And I think it would have been better to start with a more modest batch of substrate and then expand the mycelium out into a whole bucket; the mycelium wasn’t quite keeping up with the bacteria on the bottom, I think.

I should look into this stuff: Growing Mushrooms with Hydrogen Peroxide. Not that building my own laminar flow hood doesn’t sound like fun!