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

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I recently stepped into organic urban farming in pursuit of having fresh homegrown vegetables. And this was made simple and exciting, thanks to organicterrace.in and its founder Mr Prabal Mallick. The site not only has detailed explanation of growing plants, but also helps in every step of the growing stage, giving you insight on the maintenance process meanwhile familiarizing one with behavior of different plants. So far my experience has been excellent. I started off with eggplants which came out to be really delicious and now I have tomatoes, ginger, lemon, herbs, beans and garlic growing in my terrace garden. Now I am more confident on growing more fruits and vegetables; All thanks to organicterrace.in and the guidance of Prabal Bhai.
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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.
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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.
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The reliability of and emphasis on organic fertilizers such as compost, green manure as an alternative to synthetic fertilizers and pesticides is the need of the hour. With increasing number of diseases and ill health of people, consumption of organically grown fruits and vegetables will contribute largely towards well being of all. Prabal's workshop on organic urban farming is an ideal platform to learn and utilize the methods of preparing organic materials, residues, nutrients and recycling them. Very interesting and knowledge enhancing workshop. Must do.
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