Thank you for purchasing an Upcycled Mushrooms Wine Cap Grow Kit
Wine Cap mushroom (Stropharia rugosoannulata) is one of the easiest mushrooms you are ever likely to try to grow. I’m really pleased to be able to give you the opportunity to not only to try this amazing mushroom, but to also grow it for yourself! This Kit is designed to integrate mushrooms into your garden or allotment. Combined with additional wood chip and many other materials it can fruit for many years in your garden.
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Step 1
Lay out cardboard as a weed supressant to cover the area where you decide to build your mushroom bed
Step 2
Lay down roughly about 10cm (4 inch) of deciduous wood chip over the cardboard. The are should be 2sqm per kit, but kits can be combined to create a larger area.
Step 3
Open your wine cap box and break it the spawn in the bag. Open the bag and with half of the contents create small mounds of the spawn spread across the woodchip. Spread the rest loosely over all the wood chip between these mounds you just created.
Step 4
Put another layer of wood chip about 10cm (4 inch) over the whole bed.
Step 5
The bed should be water heavily for the first 5 days so that the chip is watered completely through. Then continue watering to keep the bed moist. It should produce your first flush of mushrooms in 6 months time.
The biggest challenge I had before purchasing from Upcycled mushrooms was building up the confidence to go for it. The grow box has everything you need in it and it really is as simple as adding a spray of water a few times a day to keep the humidity up.
After purchasing my lions mane grow box I was so happy with how easy and how little equipment and space I needed to start the grow.
I feel a sense of achievement that I’ve been able to start this journey at the bottom of the ladder and am already looking at how to take it to the next level. The confidence that the simple grow box made the whole concept of mycology so much less intimidating and really accessible for absolutely anyone.
If your on the fence about purchasing I’d say just go for it as £25 is a very reasonable price for the amount of lions mane you get. I paid £27 for 60grams of dried fruiting body from one company, which at the time I thought was OK. With upcycled I’m going to get 10X that and can then decide what I want to do with it which is now just a no brainer. I honestly wish I did this sooner as I could have saved more money haha.
If you’ve got any questions shoot the email a question and Patrick replies really quick and is super helpful. I even sent him a picture of where I was going to grow them to see if it was OK because I was so unsure and he gave me the thumbs up and guidance I needed.
Honestly couldn’t recommend the company enough.
Thanks for providing me a great product which was so easy to set up, I cant wait to see these amazing mushrooms fruit in all their glory.
My biggest challenge growing mushrooms has been both space and sterilisation. For that reason I thought, let’s step back a bit and start with a mushroom growing kit.
After loads of recommendations from other growers to purchase from Upcycled Mushrooms, I decided to get one of their kits. Well I tell you what, it made the process SO much easier. Now I actually feel like I can grow mushrooms!
I went for Lions Mane, something a bit different, and it’s just growing and growing and growing, so cool! I would still like to try growing from scratch again at some point, but I’m more than happy to keep getting kits for the time being, they’re so easy to use. I also found help easily enough; I had a few questions about the process (what with it being my first time growing) and Upcycled Mushrooms got back to me quickly, gaving me advice and reassurances.
So yeah, I would definitely recommend them.
FAQ
We get asked many questions about how to use our kits
Here are some of our most frequently asked questions that we get asked when using our grow kits.
My lions mane is turning brown, HELP!
If your mushroom is starting to brown on the outer edge this is a very good sign that the humidity is too low and it is drying out. If that is the case don’t woory just start spraying more wate into the carrier bag and the browned bits are still totally edible!
Why does my lions mane have a slight pink colour?
Don’t worry this is totally normal for lions mane when it is very young and usually turns to it normal white colour as the mushroom develops.
Why does my lions mane not look like what I've seen on the internet?
Occasionally lions mane can take several different forms, this can be due to changes in genetics from kt to kit, but it can also be caused by it not recieving enough oxygen and starts stretching for fresh air. If this happens don’t woory your mushroom is still totally edible and remember to give it more fresh air on the next flush.
What are useful tips to getting the best results?
One of the most imortant things to remember with growing any mushroom is keep the space where they are growing as clean as possible. This helps to prevent bacteria and other fungi from attacking your mushroom.
What should I do if I can't water my kit everyday?
For a less stress fruiting solution you can build what is called a shotgun terrarium. A video on how to make one of these is coming soon! This a clear plastic tote with 6mm holes drilled all around the sides and the lid – but not in the base or around the bottom 6cm of the tote. The bottom of the box is then filled with a layer of perlite which has been soaked in water and then strained. This creates a really stable humid environment for the kits to be put in and give great results with my lions mane kits as well as decreasing the need to mist you kit.
How do I get the second and third mushrooms from my kit after the first?
Lions mane like most mushrooms needs a period of time to reset before it produces more mushrooms. This period is usually around 2-3 weeks, during this time it is less important to keep the humidity as high as before but also we don’t want the kit to dry out. so just misting once every 2-3 days is fine. When you see the next mushroom begin to start growing from the hole then you can start misting regularly again and continue from Step 4 above.