Grow your own mushrooms

During the cold winter months, when we’re all suffering from cabin fever, I always yearn to watch something sprout and grow. Aside from my sheer enjoyment of having a little gardening project in my kitchen, getting the kids involved is a great way to teach them about how plants grown and where food comes from.

While shopping in the produce section at my local Fortino’s a few weeks ago, a found a really cool product sitting on a shelf beside the fresh mushroom display. Back to the Roots Mushroom Kit https://www.backtotheroots.com/shop/mushroom-kit boasted I could grow my own mushrooms in just 10 days! For a three- and five-year old with a short attention span, that time frame was perfect. Although I wasn’t crazy about the $20 price tag, the kit would provide me with edible mushrooms at the end of our growing experience, so into my shopping cart it went.

 Once all the groceries were put away and the kids had lunch, we got the kit ready. The instructions: just three easy steps to enjoy your homegrown, gourmet oyster mushrooms – open, mist, and harvest (after 10 days). The kids were excited to help, especially the misting part, but it only took a few minutes to prep the kit and then we had to wait. Every day we checked our little mushroom farm and misted as directed.

Both my kids love to eat mushrooms, so you can imagine how impatient they were to see the results. When we were finally ready to harvest, we trimmed and cleaned the mushroom and ate them right there.

Being able to get your kids involved in growing edible plants is a great way to teach them where their food comes from. The Mushroom Kit is an excellent teaching tool – it allows kids to truly understand where food comes from and how much time and effort is involved in growing the food we eat. A pretty important lesson when most kids have no idea what’s involved in farming and agriculture!