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There are a vast number of ways to grow mushrooms successfully, but every mushroom grows best with certain conditions. Specifically, it’s important to choose the best mushroom growing container.
Choosing the right container to grow your mushrooms in can depend on a few factors. These factors include indoor vs. outdoor, possible contamination of the mushrooms, fresh air exchange, and more. We’ve broken down the best mushroom growing container choices for different scenarios in this article.
Mushroom Growing Container: Buckets
We think choosing a bucket is probably the best mushroom growing container for most purposes.
Specifically, buckets for mushroom growing have small 0.5 inch holes throughout their side. These holes allow fresh air exchange, but they also allow the mushrooms to fruit from the mycelium through these holes.
Shop the best mushroom growing buckets on Amazon here.
One special tip with growing mushrooms in buckets is that until it’s time to fruit, you can cover the outside holes with micron filters. These allow fresh air exchange while keeping out contaminants. This makes buckets a good container for reducing risk of contamination.
Many different types of mushrooms grow very well in buckets. Most popular types of mushrooms that people like to grow at home such as the oyster mushroom variety grow easily in the bucket environment.
Convenience of using buckets to grow mushrooms
Buckets act as very convenient containers for growing mushrooms. One big reason is that they can be re-used time and time again. Many mushroom growing setups use mushroom growing bags. Mushroom growing bags can also be convenient and efficient, but they are discarded at the end of the grow cycle. This is not the case with mushroom buckets.
Secondly, buckets are also very convenient for transporation. If you are working on your mushroom growing setup and you fill your buckets from an indoor working station, you can easily carry them to your growing area without concern of any unsettling of the mushroom substrate on the inside. You can also stack buckets safely for space efficiency.
You will generally find buckets used when growing mushrooms in greenhouses, warehouses, or shed. This is mostly due to their storage and transportation efficiency.
Buckets are common in medium-sized mushroom growing operations because of all the above reasons.
Tip: We have a whole guide on using mushroom growing buckets here.
Growing Mushrooms in Trays
Using trays to grow your mushrooms can also be effective and provide space-efficiency.
Trays can be used both indoors and outdoors. Often times, outdoor growers will use trays full of soil where they will inoculate soil with mushroom spores and wait for mushrooms to grow.
We have an extensive article on growing mushrooms outdoors here.
Indoor growers also sometimes opt for trays. They are common in large-scale mushroom growing operations.
What makes trays a good choice is there convenience. You simply pour your sterilized substrate into the tray, and start adding your substrate or spawn to the tray. Then, all you have to do is wait.
One risk of using trays for your grow is the increase in risk of contamination. The mushroom growing substrate inside the tray is very exposed to outside elements, because of the wide surface area exposure to air.
Note: Visit our shop for mushroom growing supplies on Amazon.
This is why large-scale growers like to use trays, because they control for contamination in other ways such as using a sterile room to grow their mushrooms or by using highly protective soil ingredients that keep contamination out.
We don’t recommend using trays for first-time mushroom growers because of this risk of contamination. Using trays is more for advanced or knowledgeable growers. For newcomers, we recommend the 2 sections after this one: Bags and jars.
Growing Mushrooms in Bags
Growing mushrooms using plastic bags is a very common thing to see. This is a practice used by growers of all experience levels and sizes.
Remember, mushroom growing bags aren’t just any bag you can find. They are specifically designed for mushroom growing substrates and often come with self-healing injection ports where you will inject your spores.
Shop the best mushroom growing buckets on Amazon here.
Additionally, mushroom growing bags will sometimes be strong enough to withstand the sterilization process. This means you can sterilize your substrate directly in the bag.
Bags represent a few different conveniences. For one, grows using plastic bags are highly resistant to contamination. If your mushrooms are growing inside a plastic bag with a proper micron filter placed over the holes for air exchange, you are very unlikely to experience contamination.
Once you fill your bags up with the sterilized medium and inject your spores, you are pretty much good to go. Secondly, when it’s time to fruit your mushrooms you can very easily open up holes or gaps in the plastic where the mushrooms will then grow out of. This is easy to do, simply use scissors to cut slits in the plastic, as you can see in the image above.
Another factor in mushroom growing bags being effective is that they can easily be stored. This is the same as mushroom growing buckets. You can hang bags with mushrooms growing from the ceiling, like im the image above, or you can place them on shelves.
Secondly, bags are cheap and easy to acquire. You can store hundreds of empty plastic growing bags for use at a later time.
The downside of mushroom growing bags is that they are not re-usable. Once you have completed a grow inside a bag, it must be discarded in the trash or recycled. Still, mushroom growing bags are one of the best mushroom growing containers.
Buying pre-filled mushroom growing bags
If you have been browsing online for mushroom growing bags, you may have come across bags that are already filled with sterilized mushroom growing substrate, ready to be injected with spores and grown.
These can be an ideal choice especially for newcomers or people who are wishing to save on time and simply pay for growing bags that are ready to go.
Keep in mind, if you do choose to buy these pre-filled mushroom grow bags, make sure they contain the right substrate for the mushrooms you want to grow. For example, if oyster mushrooms grow very well in enriched soil with manure added, then you don’t want to buy a mushroom growing bag that contains sawdust or straw.
Not every mushroom can grow in every time of medium, so be careful when buying sterilized mushroom growing bags from online.
Final mushroom growing container: glass jars
Lastly, growing mushrooms in jars is a common choice of the best mushroom growing container for newcomers. This is mostly a practice by newcomers that are learning and first attempting the mushroom growing process.
Using glass jars is a necessary component of the PF Tek / BRF mushroom growing guide that you can find here.
Using mushroom growing jars typically is for small-batches of mushroom growing. It’s mainly for new growers to learn the ropes and process of growing mushrooms at home.
Another reason why glass jars are effective is because glass jars can withstand the high heat of the sterilization process. When using glass jars, you will fill the jar with the mushroom growing substrate and then steam-sterilize it either in a pressure cooker or a pot. Once they are sterile, you will then add your spores and let them grow.
Using glass jars represents a small-scale solution that works great for newcomers to growing mushrooms at home, and it will work well for mushrooms that you will only want to grow in small amounts. But when you are looking to upgrade your setup and begin to grow more mushrooms at a time, you will need to start using buckets or bags.
Many guides for newcomers will involve using jars to grow mushrooms, so we do recommend getting acquainted with the process. It will show you easily and simply how mushrooms are best grown and also it teaches sterilization understanding.
Conclusion
The biggest takeaway from this article is that every mushroom is different. Some mushrooms can grow well outside when faced with the natural elements of rain and contamination, while others must be grown in very controlled environments.
Secondly, all mushrooms must be grown in certain substrates that best suit them.
For these reasons, we reocmmend doing a lot of research on Google and Wikipedia to find what conditions and environments work best for your mushrooms you want to grow.
