Friday 28 March 2008

Leftover mushroom? Grow them!



I buy oyster mushroom almost every week and I have been told by my supplier that they will remain fresh 2 to 3 days refrigerated. So, what if your package has more mushroom than you need for your recipe?

If you have some glass jars on hand, you can try growing new mushroom out of your leftovers if you place them in the right environment and medium for the spores to grow.

Wikipedia has a good list of substrate or growth medium for you to choose from and most of them are waste material that you maybe able to acquire free of charge. Here are some examples extracted from that list:

# Wood chips or sawdust
# Mulched hay
# Corncobs
# Waste or recycled paper
# coffee pulp or grounds
# Nut and seed hulls
# Cottonseed hulls
# Cocoa bean hulls

I have watched how mushroom was grown with strawbedded horse manure and urea on "Dirty Job with Mike Rowe". Here is a video clip from "How It's Made" posted on YouTube.



Other than Wikipedia, you can also read "How to Grow Mushrooms" posted by BioHaze on Squidoo.

Don't like reading? You can view videos posted on YouTube by MushroomVideos. Let's start with Part 1 of 4.



There are definitely lots of stuff that you can consider doing your 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) just by cultivating mushrooms.

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