Mushroom kits have actually had a good amount of bad press recently with many critics claiming they provide very poor value for money when comparing the yields of the mushroom kits with the specific price of the mushrooms in the shops. I find this an extremely unfair comparison and feel that it is wrong to simply compare both with the amount of mushrooms that they produce.
You can purchase mushroom growing kits for only a few different species of mushroom – you can find button mushroom grow kits and you may get oyster mushroom grow kits. Both of these are the most common and will be purchased for the most part garden centres and usually on garden centre websites. Nevertheless, you may also grow other varieties from more specialist websites, allowing you to grow your personal mushrooms like Shiitake, Portobello and more. Mushroom substrate cost around �5 to �10 and can probably give you around �5 worth of mushrooms (if grown in the perfect environment, and according to the variety as some mushrooms cost more then others in the shops).
I hardly understand why people moan when it costs more to buy a mushroom growing kit then it can to buy 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 really is so much cheaper for them to grow them. Then theres the fact that in a kit you get a box and obtain the substrate (compost or straw) in addition to a small bag of spawn. When you buy mushrooms from a shop you aren’t left over with excellent compost for the garden (mushroom compost is probably the most expensive and nutritious types of compost as the mushrooms breakdown 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.
In my opinion mushroom growing kits are an excellent way of growing your personal mushrooms and even if sometimes they don’t offer amazing affordability in comparison with the shop price you will learn so much from doing it yourself and will probably take great pride in growing and then eating your personal mushrooms. Maybe even once you’ve learned a bit more about cultivating mushrooms you can cut out the middleman and discover your personal substrate (straw, newspaper, manure) and purchase or make your own mushroom spawn. This is where you can get real affordability too, growing a huge selection of pounds worth of mushroom from literally a few pounds investm