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The best location to grow mushrooms is indoors. This is because the temperature inside our homes is what the mushrooms require to fruit year-round.
The main challenge is that we generally keep our houses dry. This done to stop that notorious fungi mould, from growing. So, the best location is one where we can manage temperature and humidity. Note: this humidity is only required for the 5 days that they are fruiting. See our article about managing humidity.
For optimum results here’s a list of locations in order of best to worse.
Inside the shower stall will be the most humid area in your house and an excellent spot (in most cases it’s perfect!) to put it while you learn the ropes. Just put it on a plastic stool after you have had a shower. You only need to do this for the 5 days it is fruiting. The rest of the time we recommend keeping it in the kitchen.
If you are going out for the day, run the shower for a few seconds. Spray the walls and close the shower door. The slow evaporation of the water will be trapped, raising the humidity.
Another benefit of the shower is that if you miss the 5-day harvest cut off, and it spores heavily, it will be easy to clean up.
The shower stall technique is also a good option if you are living in an apartment or short on space.
Bathrooms are also good, especially in winter. You can isolate it from other areas of the house that may be dry due to heat pumps or other forms of central heating. While it’s fruiting, run it a little more humid in there. By all means, vent out moisture if it’s building up/ But don’t run the heater or the fan for as long.
Having it in the bathroom will still require a lot of misting during the day.
This is probably the most popular location for our customers to grow. Generally, the kitchen is okay especially if it’s active with pots boiling away. More importantly, you will ve able to check it frequently and if it’s showing signs of struggling, you can quickly fix it.
For the kitchen ‘grow’ the most common method of maintaining moisture is to mist it with a spray bottle. As you’ll need to do this frequently (about once an hour), it’s in a convenient location and in a area that can handle the moisture.
We generally do not recommend growing in a shed or garage, but many customers have found that it works well for them. The main reason is that you will have less control over the temperature (too hot in summer and too cold in winter), and they can also be dry. However, your shed or garage may be ideal. Especially if it’s naturally a bit damp.
The drawback of growing here, in addition to wild temperature fluctuation, is that you are in less of a position to observe and provide remedial action if starts going wrong. Also, you may get pests without noticing them.
An active glasshouse is also a great location, especially if it is well-used and set up for growing seedlings, and high humidity. We also assume that someone considering growing there is also a keen gardener and understanding of the needs of plant and fungi care. However, take care during the hot and colder months. In the summer keep it low, so in a cooler zone, and the opposite in winter. You may also need to provide some stage.
Also, keep an eye out for pests. We recommend having a yellow sticky flytrap nearby so that you can monitor it.
These are generally not recommended for several reasons. Firstly they are generally dry and a difficult area to maintain humidity. Also, if they spore, it’s a difficult area to clean, and may negatively affect the air quality.
Due to the air movement, these areas are often dry and difficult to maintain humidity. Unless the conditions outside a perfect. Keep away from open windows/sliding doors etc.
Unless you know what you are doing, these are bad locations. This is mainly due to a lack of airflow.
We may at times recommend leaving the bag outside for a few days, in order to trigger pinning – but not to fruit.
Leaving it outside will mean leaving it to the vagarities of the weather. So fruiting will be infrequent and unless the conditions are ideal, prone to fail. It will also be susceptible to pests including slugs and snails that will eat a ready-to-harvest mushroom bag overnight! It will also most likely become infected with fungus gnats.
This is used to keep laundry dry & stop it from going mouldy, ’nuff said!
These are generally designed to keep your floorboards dry (stop them from rotting) so have massive ventilation over dry dirt. Not a good combination.
The number one worst area, mainly from a health perspective. During the time the mushrooms are growing, they will release some spore, followed by a massive dump on about day 5. Due to concentrated space, and lack of air movement, this would be dangerous to your health.
