Growing Mushrooms

I recently received a box containing the necessities to grow oyster mushrooms. I may have gotten a little overexcited...and, well, I took photos. Lots of photos. Enough that maybe I should have shared a few along the way throughout various posts...but I waited until after harvesting, so now you get a bunch of them all at once, though not nearly as many as I actually took.

Something that amazed me was how quickly they grew, so I'll be sharing date and time of each photo so you can see exactly how quickly things went.

4/27 at 8PM

Everything was contained in a plastic bag, which I had to cut a hole in using my nice wonderful amazing (yes I know one adjective should suffice) new Gerber multitool. Yes, I may be just a bit excitable about getting to use my new shiny multitool.

4/27 at 8PM

Next, turn it upside down and soak in water for about eight hours.

4/28 at 11:30PM

Then I placed it back in the box so that the hole I cut in the plastic lined up with the hole in the box...and waited. 

And, yes, I placed the mushroom box on my bookshelf. The instructions said that indirect light was needed, so this seemed ideal.

4/30 at 6PM

White stuff began to grow on April 29th. The tiny white things more than doubled in size to what you can see above.

5/1 at 3:30AM

Just two days later they had grown considerably more.

5/1 at 4PM

Roughly twelve hours later the tops were dark.

5/2 at 4:30PM

I was unexplainably delighted when the tops of the mushrooms grew little dents. So cute!

5/2 at 4:30PM

I started getting photos from the side...

5/2 at 9:30PM

...and yes, they grew that much in a mere five hours.

5/3 at 4PM

Isn't it amazing how quickly they grow?

5/3 at 4PM

:D

5/4 at 1:30AM

I think it was about this point when I was getting surprised at how big they were.

5/4 at 5PM

And they kept on growing.

5/4 at 5PM

Delicious.

5/5 at 5:30PM

I think they were fully grown at this point. And yes, that's spawn next to the mushroom box, though I didn't have a clue what it was at first. I really hope mushrooms don't start growing on my bookshelf now...that would be inconvenient.

I'm delighted with my mushrooms, and intend to grow more. And yes I've already tried eating a couple of these...I used too much butter, but could still tell that the mushrooms tasted good. Those details, and how the rest are cooked, will belong to a different post.