Oyster mushroom mycelium loves coffee grounds .... and coffee filters ... and tea leaves. I put some moistened shredded paper in the bottom of a small bucket. To that i add a handful of oyster mushroom spawn and mix it up. We put the bucket in the cabinet under the sink. Each morning Robin puts her used coffee grounds and filter into the bucket. We also add tea leaves when we make a pitcher of iced tea which is about every other day. It takes 2-3 weeks to fill up a small bucket. By the time it is full the mycelium has run up to about the 3rd layer from the top.
When a bucket is full we put it on the screen porch and start another bucket. It took about 3 more weeks for the mycelium to completely colonize the bucket and start producing mushrooms. We expect to harvest several flushes of mushrooms from the bucket. After that we can dump the mass out of the bucket and use the mycelium to start more buckets.
We bought the bucket from Happy Donuts (used to contain donut glaze) for $1.00 We paid about $30.00 for a bag of mushroom spawn from Mushroom Mountain. We can start about 100 buckets from a bag so that cost is $0.30. Total cost $1.30. We will get at least $5.00 worth of mushrooms. Not a bad profit from a waste product.
I will update you on the actual amount of mushrooms we can harvest from a bucket.
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