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It’s important to control for factors when growing mushrooms, because some mushrooms you can grow at home are very picky. Using a mushroom grow tent can help you to control for more factors than other setups, such as humidity levels.
While it is not necessary to use grow tents, the ability to control humidity, keep temperatures more stable, and regulate fresh air intake is valuable. Controlling closely for these variables can produce bigger and better mushrooms.
If you don’t want to use a mushroom grow tent, a regular space in your house such as a closet, a basement, or a shed outside can work well. You will just need to be more considerate of the conditions like temperature, relative humidity, etc.
For example, you won’t want to grow mushrooms in an outdoor shed during the winter, as the shed will be far too cold for mushroom growth to grow reasonably.
What are mushroom grow tents?
There is one primary type of mushroom grow tent. These are known as ‘Martha Tents’. Martha tents are small closet-like grow spaces that consist of a few simple building components. See this image here of a martha tent:
As you can see, a martha tent consists of the following:
- Plastic or metal shelving
- Transparent plastic cover
- Boxes/containers for mushroom growing
This simple Martha Tent setup is what allows for advanced growers to control for variables and grow excellent mushrooms.
How does a martha tent work?
Martha tents primarily control humidity and air exchange in your mushroom growing space.
Even without advanced appliances, you can see how having an enclosed, tented space can control for humidity. When you mist your mushrooms, the moisture will remain in the air inside the Martha tent. This keeps it how mushrooms like it.
If you want to increase the abilities of your Martha tent, see the section below:
A humidity controlling device and an air exchange device can be attached to the outside of the Martha tent.
To explain, a humidity controlling device will monitor and dispense humidity in the air of the enclosed Martha tent. This means the device reads the relative humidity in the tent and emits more humid air if required.
The air exchange device also helps to keeps fresh air always inside the tent along with the humidity. As you may know from other mushroom growing content, fresh air is a very key component in growing mushrooms well.
Now, you can see that Martha tents aren’t very big. They are still an appliance mostly for beginning or intermediate growers. If you want to grow more mushrooms than what can fit in one tent, then you can build multiple or you can take the concept and scale it.
Many commercial mushroom grows resemble martha tents, but just way bigger! Almost like a greenhouse.
Using lights in your Martha Tent
Some growers also like to include an LED light in their (martha) mushroom grow tent to help with certain parts of the grow cycle. As you may know, light can be used when growing certain mushrooms to spur fruiting of the mushrooms.
If you want a fully equipped Martha tent, then we recommend adding a light source that you can turn on and off.
Another helpful tip when installing a light is using a mechanical timer with the light, so you can set it to only turn on during the day or at other times you prefer. This helps mimick natural light from the sun, and saves on power and time!
See the above photo for a martha tent with a light installed. Simply route the cord into the martha tent and seal it back up with the light fixture at the top of the tent and you are good to go.
What mushrooms to grow in a Martha tent?
Theoretically, you can grow just about anything in a Martha tent, because you can control the humidity and temperature to whichever mushroom you want to grow.
Some great mushrooms to try out in your (Martha) mushroom grow tent are oyster mushrooms, hen of the woods (Also known as maitake), and other common gourmet mushrooms.
There is no real limit, and truly anything will work as long as you make it work yourself by deploying the Martha tent properly.
Benefits of using a mushroom growing tent
Controlling and monitoring temperature and humidity keep your mushrooms at their highest growth potential. By mimicking the conditions of nature that mushrooms thrive in, you’re allowing them to grow efficiently and strongly.
Isolating your mushroom growing by using a thick plastic tent also prevents contamination potential. When you grow mushrooms outdoors or in an open room in your house, you expose your mushroom substrates to more fresh air in your room or the outdoors. By using a (martha) mushroom grow tent, you limit exposure.
Contamination is a very real problem when growing mushrooms, so this benefit cannot be understated.
It’s also very handy to be able to see through the plastic grow tent and check on your mushroom substrates or fruiting mushrooms without having to disturb them or expose them. This is an often-overlooked benefit to using a Martha mushroom grow tent. Monitoring your grow is crucial!
One additional benefit is that Martha mushroom tents also keep your growing activity in a dedicated and clean space.
Keeping a clean space is also highly important when it comes to growing mushrooms. Mushrooms don’t do well with common contamination, and so the more clean your area the better.
As a bonus, Martha tents also reduce any smell your growing material or mushrooms may let off – this is usually very mild.
Conclusion
Read more great information from North Spore on this topic here: https://northspore.com/blogs/the-black-trumpet/martha-tent-aka-martha-tek-or-martha-technique-step-by-step-tutorial
In conclusion, Martha mushroom grow tents are not necessary to grow mushrooms at home. They can help you grow bigger and better mushrooms if you want to build one. You don’t need to worry about building a Martha tent if you are new to growing mushrooms and have a dedicated space such as a basement or shed during the spring/summer.
Making a Martha grow tent requires shelving to keep your mushroom substrate spawning blocks on, a transparent plastic tent to cover and contain the setup, a humidity control device, and a fresh air exchange device. You can keep it more simply by excluding humidity control in the beginning.
Additionally, your setup may require additional work like air ducting and long electrical wires to properly build it in the space where you want the tent, but this is worth the effort.
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