Inside your DIY Mushroom Mini Farm is your mushroom grain spawn. The mycelium (the mushroom organism) growing on the grain spawn is alive and it’s keen to grow! Ideally you should begin your DIY Mini Farm as soon as you receive it, but we understand sometimes this isn't possible (if you're giving the kit as a gift or going away).

Thankfully gold oyster, warm white oyster and snow white oyster grain spawn can be stored in the fridge until you're ready to grow it or gift it. So take the grain spawn packet out of your bucket and keep it in the fridge until you're ready to start. The other contents of your bucket are fine to store at room temperature. The mushroom grain spawn will store for a few months in the fridge if necessary.

Don't keep it your bucket somewhere it could exceed 30°C.

We’ve selected a range of mushroom types for our DIY Mini Farms which will grow easily in most Australian households, however you do need to pay attention to your current weather conditions and choose the mushroom that suits your climate for the best results.

If you can control your room temperature we would recommend a stable 18-21°C.

Here’s a quick overview below listed from coolest to warmest growing temperature range.

Snow White Oyster Mushroom - 10°C to 21°C

Like their namesake, Snow White Oysters don’t like it too warm. They won’t melt, but they won’t grow either. Be sure to keep these buckets under 24°C.

Warm White Oyster Mushroom - 10°C to 30°C

This mushroom is a versatile all-rounder and you can grow Warm White Oysters anywhere in this broad temperature range. If you’re not sure what mushroom to grow, may we humbly suggest you lock this one in if you're a beginner or don't have climate control capability!

Gold Oyster Grow Kit - 18°C to 30°C

The glorious yellow hues of the Gold Oyster remind us of a warm tropical holiday, and you could take this kit with you! It doesn’t mind the warmer weather, just keep your eye on it. It grows super fast!

In nature, mushrooms grow in the cool, moist areas of the forest where they are sheltered from the weather and wind, so it's best to find a place like this in or around your house.

Many people say to grow your mushrooms in the bathroom as it's an area that often has humidity from showers. While this can be good, airflow is also important and small enclosed spaces can cause your mushrooms to suffer from a lack of oxygen.

We recommend placing your bucket somewhere indoors, out of direct sunlight. This will allow you to check on them daily and serve as a reminder to spray your grow kit regularly to keep humidity high.

Keep it out of wind or away from heaters which can cause it to dry out. Air conditioning can also dry out your mushrooms so you may need to mist your mushrooms more regularly if they're going to sit in an air conditioned room.

It's also a good idea not to place your mushroom bucket next to potted plants, household bins, compost bins, or soil as these can harbour other fungi, moulds and insects such as fungus gnats which can spread mould to your bucket.

If you're struggling to maintain humidity (a common problem for the bucket technique as the mushroom aren't protected by plastic grow bag flaps) you may need to make a simple grow chamber such as a shotgun fruiting chamber or a small grow tent.

Yes it does! If you drill your holes too small in your buckets, this can make it difficult for a good pin set to form. If you make your holes too big, the substrate in the hole may dry out if too exposed to air during incubation. We recommend a hole about the size of a 10 cent or 20 cent coin is perfect.

The white stuff on the grains is called mycelium and this is normal. Mycelium is the fungal organism that produces mushrooms, you can think of mycelium as a root-like network of the mushroom.

If you don't see any white stuff on your grain spawn when you receive the mushroom bucket please send us a photo to hello@littleacre.com.au.

To mist your mushroom bucket, spray the pin sets from a distance of about 10-15cm away from the developing mushrooms. Too much water on the surface of the mushrooms can cause bacterial problems or prevent your mushrooms growing completely. Your mushrooms should look shiny and velvety. If your caps are browing at the edge or cracking then they are drying out and you need to increase your frequency of misting.

A rough ballpark is to mist your bucket whenever you have a chance, at least 3-5 times a day. Remember that high humidity is crucial for your mushrooms to produce a great crop. You need to be maintain a relative humidity of at least 85% around your mushrooms.

Mushrooms are not like plants, they don't need watering, just humidity. Over-saturating your mushrooms can kill the mushroom mycelium so please don't go crazy with the misting either. Just think Goldilocks...not too much but not too little, just right!

Continue to mist the air around your mushrooms as they grow to prevent them from drying out.

It's best not to miss a day of misting, however we understand this may be unavoidable. If you know you will be unable to mist your bucket, create a mini micro-climate around your bucket to keep up the humidity. You can do this by creating a humidity chamber. We have a simple method to create a DIY humidity chamber -watch our tutorial video on YouTube.

Oyster mushrooms are the fastest growing, in just 5-10 days once they emerge from the holes in your bucket.

Once you see baby mushrooms appear you'll be surprised how quickly they grow - doubling in size every day!

If your mushrooms have stopped growing or changing this could be an indication that your mushrooms have dried out or gotten stressed. If this happens you will need to pull the dried pin sets out of the holes and try for new pin sets.

The colour of a mushroom is greatly affected by how much light they are exposed to. The more light the darker the mushroom, if you are noticing that your white oyster mushrooms are a shade of beige or brown this is completely normal. If you would like them to be as white as possible grow them in a very dark position. Temperature can also affect colouration. Oyster mushrooms grown in cooler temperatures will produce darker colouration.

Gold Oyster mushrooms grow a little differently to other oyster varieties. Once the pin set emerges it will kind of look like a baby Lion's Mane - like a knobbly ball. However, within 1-2 days you will see this separate into the individual caps of the oyster mushroom and the yellow colour will get brighter. If you want to grow really yellow/gold oysters place your kit under a bright LED light for the duration of it's growth.

Unfortunately the ideal growing conditions for mushrooms are also inviting to other fungi, including moulds - yuck!

Some common moulds that you may encounter include green trichoderma mould, cobweb mould and pinhead mould commonly found on rotting fruit. For help identifying competitor mould please read our help article - How to Identify Mould Contamination

We hope you don't encounter any of these moulds on your mushroom growing adventures but if you do, don't stress! Fungi is all around us and they play vital roles in the interconnected systems we live in. Admire their ingenuity while you shake your fist at them and try again.