We picked up a couple of fun projects at the Mother Earth News Fair last weekend. At the Mitsubishi booth, where they were featuring electric cars, we received a couple of starter gardening kits, one for basil and the other for zinnias. And we purchased a mushroom garden from the
Back to the Roots booth.
The zinnia will be sent to Tommy, who's working out-of-state this summer and wants to "grow something." The basil got planted and now sits on our kitchen windowsill, preparing to sprout! No matter how often I've seen it happen, still it is amazing to witness a tiny seed planted, sprouting, growing, bearing fruit, and providing food, beauty, and pleasure for people!
On our kitchen counter we are now growing mushrooms in a box! Mycelium (the vegetative part of the mushroom) is mixed in with recycled coffee grounds, packaged in a biodegradable box, and sold at Whole Food Markets across the country, where they are flying off the shelves. One box can grow up to a pound of pearl oyster mushrooms.
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| The packaged product |
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| The contents |
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| Tear off the front flap and cut a + in the plastic soil bag. |
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| Soak it for 24 hours. |
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Return the bag to the box, mist with water twice a day, and
watch the mushrooms grow! |
Stay tuned for a mushroom report in about 10 days! In the meantime, you might enjoy watching a video about the two young men who, in their senior year at UC Berkley began this product line that is growing even faster than their mushrooms. It's a fascinating story. You'll find it
here.
2 comments:
Several delightful ideas--growing things is always gratifying. I'm wanting to know, once you've found out, how the mushrooms in the kit do. How do they taste--I've never tasted that type.
And--can you reuse the kit or grow the mushrooms on your own once you've done it with the kit once?
Karen, this is just the thing you'd love! We were told that when you are done with the kit, you just take it (box and all, if I understood the salesperson correctly) and put it right in the garden, as it is all biodegradable! I'm looking forward to a rich harvest!
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