Terrace gardening is all about using unused space at your home to grow vegetables and greens. No matter what space you use, be it balcony or terrace or windowsill, sunlight availability is a basic requirement for growing any plant. But mushrooms are something that you grow without sunlight in indoor spaces. They are also very easy to grow and score very high on nutrition scale. They have high iron and protein content and zero cholesterol and low calorific value. Mushrooms are grown on organic waste and the water requirement is very low. In this post on How to grow mushrooms at home I’ll guide you on how you can easily grow oyster mushrooms, which has the maximum bio efficiency (output weight to input weight ratio) among all mushrooms.

poly bag for oyster mushroom — 40×80 cm Poly bag used for for oyster mushroom

Spawn for oyster mushroom. The middle one is not ready while the others are ready to be used

Oyster Mushrooms

The reason I chose to write about Oyster mushrooms is the fact that not only they have the highest bio efficiency (80%-120%), they are the simplest to grow and always give consistent production. So if you have never grown any kind of mushrooms, Oyster is the one you must start with. The species name of oyster mushroom is Pleurotus. There are a few popular ones that are grown around India. Couple of them are,

Pleurotus Sajar Caju – High temperature tolerance. It’s a little grey in color. Bio Efficiency is 80-100%.
Pleurotus Florida – Winter Variety. Its white in color. Bio efficiency is 100%

Soak the straw in water for at least 8 hours

take out the spawn to a tray and divide into four parts — Take out the spawn onto a tray and divide into four parts

Requirements for growing Oyster mushrooms

Inputs

For 1 standard size bag of 40 cm x 80 cm the following materials are needed.

Straw – 2 kg of aged and well dried paddy straw. The straw must be thick, hard, straight and old. While cutting the straw retain as much base as possible
Spawn – 200g (available in 1 bottle)
Polythene bag (open from both sides) – 40 x 80 cm
Water

Climatic Requirements

Temperature: 20-38° Celsius
- Pleurotus Sajar Caju – 25-30° Season is July to Feb
- Pleurotus Florida – 20-25° Season is Nov to Jan
Relative Humidity: 85-90%
Light: 200 Lux, which means the amount of light you would get if you have all your windows closed and covered with curtains.
pH: 6.5 – 7.0
Substrate Moisture” 50-55%. If bed dries out too quickly or it is watered often the production drops.

Place the spawn on the sides of the bag in four layers

How to grow Oyster mushrooms at home

Preparing Paddy Straw

Cut the straw to 2 inch pieces and soak in water tank for 6 to 8 hours. It should be completely submerged in water.
Drain the water from the tank. Toxins from the straw are released in the water. So the water looks yellow.
Let excess moisture drain.
The straw should be dried to about 50-55% moisture content. To check squeeze the straw hard. If no water is squeezed out but palms become just moist then it is at approx 50-55% moisture.

Preparing Bags

Take out the spawn from the bottle using a metal wire onto a tray.
Tie one end of the bag.
Place ¼ of the straw inside.
Now place ¼ spawn on the sides next to the wall of the bag.
Repeat above two steps three more times till all the spawn is used up.
Now press the straw with your palms and tie the bag on top after taking out all air from the bag.
Make 25-30 holes around the bag with a 2-3 mm thick needle.
Keep it in a cool and dark place for 15 days. Mycelium growth would have taken place in this time. It would look like a spider web covered cylinder of straw.
Open the bag and hang the paddy straw bundle. You can start watering it with a hand held sprayer after 2 days of opening the bag.
In another 7 days pin heads will appear. These will grow fast and turn into full sized mushrooms. Harvest can continue upto a month after opening the bag.

Hang the bundle with spider web like mycelium growth

Mushrooms appearing in the bundle — Mushroom pin heads appearing in the straw

Oyster mushroom is easy to grow, but you can often fail if the conditions in which you grow them is not hygienic. Always clean and sanitize the equipment you are using for better production. Keep your hands clean while handling the spawn and the bags. Good quality straw makes a lot of difference in order to grow mushrooms at home. You’ll get very low production if the straw is of inferior quality. Hence make sure you get good paddy straw as describe above for your bags. And last but not the least maintaining proper moisture level and light also plays a big role in the production. But these are things that come with experience. The more mushrooms you grow the better you grow them.

Mushrooms growing fast. This is a 3 day old oyster mushroom

Mushrooms ready for harvest — Oyster Mushrooms almost ready for harvest

What People Are Saying About Us

Susmita PaniFormer Reader in English at Ravenshaw University, Freelance ELT Consultant
Attending the three-week organic urban farming workshop, organized by Paz Farming and Organic Terrace was a revelation. Both Shweta and Prabal are extremely knowledgeable, competent and exude confidence that comes from experience. They are keen, dedicated, helpful and more than willing to share information. The wonderful team created a climate of collegiality among all of us who ranged from 20 to 60 years. It was a genuinely interactive and participatory workshop where we covered a wide gamut of topics through hands on practice. Anyone who has the slightest interest in environment and organic farming must attend this workshop.
G JagadishFormer LIC Officer
The "Organic Urban Farming Crash Course" organised by Sri.Prabal Mallik, Founder, Organic Terrace and Ms.Shweta Agarwal, Director, Paz Farming has come to my fortunes at the right time when I was in need of it the most.

I knew that my desire was ripe to start my own terrace vegetable garden but was unsure of how to start one. I came to the program with almost zero gardening experience. Thanks to Prabal Babu and Madam Shweta for making the aspirants like me learn most of the latest skills in organic terrace gardening. Now with this 21-day course I feel that I am thoroughly equipped having bestowed with the right knowledge, skills, abilities and confidence to start a successful "terrace garden" and "open land farming" as well.

My sincere thanks with whole lot of appreciations go to the duo for a splendid academic exposure clubbed with hand-holding guidance.
I wish OT n PF all success in their future endeavors.
Nikky PujariChicago, Illinois
The Organic Terrace blog is well researched, simple to follow and written by someone who is not just passionate about growing organic vegetables but very experienced in all of its facets. I followed instructions on tomato growing and immediately saw results - 13 big, red, sun-ripened organically grown tomatoes on a 10 inch container..wish I could attend the workshop too. Love the blog!
VanshitaStudent at KIIT International School
Our generation really needs to understand and appreciate the skill of growing one's own food. It is important for each of us to have the knowledge and skill to do so. Urban Farming course with Shweta Di and Prabal sir was of the eye opener experiences of my life. Not only did I understand the actual importance, but also got to know that urban farming is not so tedious if done correctly. I would suggest every student of my age to take up these courses in order to become independent and responsible in life. If we grow what we need it will be a two fold benefit. First there would be minimum or no wastage and second we'll consume minimum chemicals. Being self sufficient has always been a goal in my life and this course has helped me to take a huge step towards my goal. Both Prabal sir and Shweta Di are very helpful and interactive which made the experience and learning interesting and fruitful.
Navneet AroraHome Maker
The summer course on Urban Farming organised by Prabal and Shweta was just what I needed. Though I am an enthusiastic amateur kitchen gardener, I was beginning to feel tired due to poor yield and crops lost to pests as I was against using any chemicals. Learning tried and tested methods from Prabal's and Shweta's own experience as successful organic gardeners filled the gap in my understanding. I feel I now understand the entire process of soil preparation, composting, crop rotation etc much better. I am back into gardening with renewed vigour and am looking forward to a bumper harvest this season.
Uday SahuAtmaram Chain of Hotels and Restaurants
I had been planting the odd vegetables in my terrace without real success. But last year I started taking consultation from Prabal of http://organicterrace.in and things have completely changed since then. Not only I learned proper ways of growing vegetables in containers, the passion of Prabal was so inspiring that in approximately 3 months I had a full fledged vegetable garden on my terrace. I also managed to get free giveaways of eggplant, tomato saplings by organicterrace.in, which helped me to build my garden faster. Huge thanks again to organicterrace and Prabal.
Hemant Kumar JenaTerritory Manager, BPCL
Being a plant lover it was a coincidence that I happened to visit organic terrace garden developed by Mr.Prabal Mallick. The varieties of vegetables grown in healthy plants was attraction as well as inspiration for me.I was amazed with the taste of raw vegetables like beans, carrot, cherry tomato, lettuce etc. I spent more than 2 hours in Prabal's garden, got inspired and started developing a small terrace garden in my home. Now, I spend my mornings in my terrace garden filled with different flowers and vegetables. I and my family enjoy the taste and sweetness of healthy and fresh vegetables. I am really thankful to Mr.Prabal for his systematic guidance and conviction towards organic urban farming which helped me develop my garden.Now even I am passionate about organic farming and planning to go into full scale organic farming as my post retirement plan. Thanks to Prabal, thanks to Organic Terrace. I wish both bright future.