Many of the items on our Bucket List start with a question from one of our two kidlets. Today’s Bucket List entry originated at Woolworth’s as we chose mushrooms for our dinner. Master R asked “where do mushrooms come from? How do they grow?”. I spoke about microscopic spores, fungi and cow paddocks. He looked lost. What 4 year old wouldn’t?
Living in the city we weren’t likely to find any edible mushrooms growing in the local park, and even if we did have some I’m unsure whether I could identify the edible from the poisonous. That night I did a little research and the next morning we set off to Flower Power for a Mushroom Kit – mushroomkit.com.au.
The mushroom kit, once opened, looked like a big box of soft dirt. The instructions told us that the compost is prepared and inoculated with the mushroom mycelium ready to grow. All we needed to do was water it regularly. Master R loves water so this was easy.
We decided that we would keep the box in the garage which is usually quite dark. Each day we went out together and watered the box. We spoke about mushrooms liking dark and moist places to grow. After about 9 days the dirt began to change. It was as if small white beads were appearing in the soil. Master R touched each round bead and counted them – 20! We speculated how big they would grow. Would they turn into mushrooms?
A few days later and our first mushroom harvest was ready. How would we pick the mushrooms? Should we cut each mushroom out of the dirt? Dig them out? After a little discussion, Master R decided picking them was the perfect solution.
Our first harvest was ready! Risotto here we come!
