Mushroom kits have actually had a good amount of bad press in recent times 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 buy mushroom growing kits for just a few different species of mushroom – you can get button mushroom grow kits and you may get oyster mushroom grow kits. Both of these are the most common and can be purchased at most garden centres and usually on garden centre websites. Nevertheless, you can also grow other varieties from more specialist websites, enabling you to grow your own mushrooms like Shiitake, Portobello and more. These kits usually cost around �5 to �10 and can probably offer you around �5 worth of mushrooms (if grown in the best possible environment, and depending on variety as some mushrooms cost more then others in the shops).
I hardly understand why people moan when it costs more to get a mushroom growing kit then it can to get the mushrooms themselves. A lot of the supermarket mushrooms are grown massively in bulk and so 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 obtain a box and get the substrate (compost or straw) as well as a small bag of spawn. When you buy mushrooms from the shop you aren’t left with excellent compost for your 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 there’s Mushrooms chocolate bar that you are growing mushrooms yourself – surely the excitement and fun factor are worth paying for too.
For me mushroom growing kits are an excellent way of growing your own mushrooms and also if sometimes they don’t offer amazing value for money when compared to the shop price become familiar with so much from doing it yourself and can probably take great pride in growing and eating your personal mushrooms. Maybe even once you have learned a little more about cultivating mushrooms you could cut out the middleman and find your personal substrate (straw, newspaper, manure) and purchase or make your own mushroom spawn. That’s where you can get real affordability too, growing a huge selection of pounds worth of mushroom from literally a few pounds investm