Mushroom kits have actually had a fair 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 believe that it is wrong to simply compare the two with the amount of mushrooms that they produce.
You can buy mushroom growing kits for only a few different species of mushroom – you can obtain button mushroom grow kits and you can get oyster mushroom grow kits. These two are the most common and can 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 own mushrooms like Shiitake, Portobello and much more. These kits usually cost around �5 to �10 and will probably offer you around �5 worth of mushrooms (if grown in the best possible environment, and depending on variety as some mushrooms cost more then others in the shops).
I hardly understand why people moan when it costs more to get a mushroom growing kit then it does to get the mushrooms themselves. Most 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 for them to grow them. Then theres the point that in a kit you get a box and get the substrate (compost or straw) as well as a small bag of spawn. When yoursite.com buy mushrooms from the shop you aren’t left with excellent compost for the garden (mushroom compost is among the most expensive and nutritious forms of compost as the mushrooms break down and recycle many nutrients within 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 effective way of growing your personal mushrooms and also if sometimes they don’t offer amazing value for money in comparison with the shop price you will learn so much from carrying it out yourself and can probably take great pride in growing and then eating your personal mushrooms. Maybe even once you’ve learned a little more about cultivating mushrooms you could cut out the middleman and discover 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 couple of pounds investm
