Now this is the greatest part of the whole process, watching as the mushrooms form primordia, which look like little pins) and begin to grow into full size mushrooms.

All mushrooms go through the pinning stage. While some look different to others, like Lion’s Mane for example, most appear the same. They look like little pins like mum or nanna has in her sewing kit. However, they do not stay like this for long and before you know it they will begin to take shape into a miniature version of the mushroom you are about to grow.

It is important not to allow children to touch them. While it is tempting, primordia are susceptible to contamination and damage, so they are best seen and not touched for a few days, then gentle touching with a very clean finger tip can be done just once.

Mushrooms grow very quickly and in most cases, they will almost double in size every day. When to harvest can be the next question and we want you to know, if you purchased yours from us, we will happily take a look at photos and let you know our opinion.

It is vital not to let your mushrooms grow for too long though. The fruit that you are going to eat is actually the end of life reproductive stage for the mycelium, which means it will drop spores and eventually die. Mushrooms such as Oysters will begin to spore fairly soon after reaching their harvestable size, so it is important to watch for this and remove any that begin to spore. On a dark bench it will be very noticeable, but a dark cloth or serviette placed under the fruiting body will assist those with a lighter coloured bench.

If you or your children suffer with allergies, please be careful. Not a lot of people suffer from exposure to mushroom spores, but the author does and I have to wear a Hepa filtered mask when I enter our grow rooms. So please remember, these are organisms that have survived hundreds of millions of years, they literally made it through the comet that wiped out dinosaurs and for a few million years, were the only semblance of self sustaining fungi on the planet. So they are serious survivors and will likely be here long after we are gone.