The Best Mushroom Growing Kits to Expand Your Veggie Garden
Grow your own edible mushrooms like morels, oysters, and more at home.
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If you have a green thumb or are a mushroom-loving home cook, purchasing a mushroom growing kit is worth it. It allows you to learn the process of mushroom cultivation, expose your palate to new mushrooms, and even find a new hobby. In the Good Housekeeping Institute Kitchen & Cooking Lab, we have indoor gardens, including some mushroom growing kits. We also reached out to specialty mushrooms and agroforestry specialist Steve Gabriel to help inform our testing criteria and to provide an expert opinion on what to look for when buying a mushroom kit.
Our top picks
- Best overall: GMHP Gourmet Mushroom Products Backyard Morel Mushroom Growing Kit
- Best value: Back to the Roots Organic Oyster Mushroom Growing Kit
- Best for beginners: North Spore Pink Oyster Mushroom Growing Kit
Mushroom growing kits come in a variety of mushroom varietals, from white button mushrooms and shiitake mushrooms to specialty morels and oyster mushrooms. Fresh homegrown mushrooms are a versatile ingredient for topping pizza or adding a meaty element to a vegetarian ramen. They're also packed with multiple health benefits. “One cup of raw sliced mushrooms has about 20 calories, but is packed with nutrients like potassium, selenium, copper, and B vitamins depending on the variety," says Stefani Sassos, M.S., R.D.N., C.D.N., director of the Good Housekeeping Institute Nutrition Lab. "They make a great low-calorie but nutrient-dense choice to add to any meal.”
Pros
- Minimal maintenance needed
- Produces pounds of mushrooms
- Morels are typically expensive to buy in store
Cons
- Requires patience as kit will take about two growing season to produce mushrooms
One of the most prized specialty mushrooms is morels, a wild mushroom that is usually foraged only in the woods in the spring and can cost as much as $20 per pound. We do not recommend wild mushroom foraging unless you are a professional forager, as there are many poisonous mushrooms that look similar to edible wild mushrooms. With this kit, however, you can grow your own morels in your backyard and harvest them after about two growing seasons.
While this kit may take more patience than other mushroom growing kits, it claims to produce pounds of morels. This kit contains a living morel fungus in a 22-ounce block of morel mushroom spawn mycelium that you can plant in your yard—then you let nature do the rest.
When we consulted Steve Gabriel about morel mushroom growing kits, he explained that there is no guarantee that you will be able to grow morels at home since they are a very complex species, but it's possible, which makes a morel mushroom kit a gamble in terms of whether it will be able to fruit or not.
Pros
- Less than $20 for mushroom growing kit
- Compact in size
- Includes a spray bottle
Cons
- Some Amazon reviewers reported small harvests
For less than $20, you can grow organic brown oyster mushrooms in the comfort of your home, any time of year. We love that you don't need any additional equipment for this mushroom growing kit; the shrooms grow right in the box, and a small spray bottle is included. Taking care of this substrate requires simply opening the box, placing it by a window with indirect light, and misting the substrate twice daily. According to Back to the Roots, it takes 10 days for your first harvest, and you can get two harvests out of each box, which is a great value for a budget-friendly kit.
Many Amazon reviewers rave about how easy and fun it is to use, though some reported small harvests and said that, like most gardening, it is a gamble. Back to the Roots, however, does stand behind their growing kits so much that if you do not receive fruitful results, they will send you a replacement kit.
Pros
- Easy-to-follow instructions
- Comes with all the equipment needed
- Oyster mushrooms are easier to grow
Cons
- A second harvest isn’t guaranteed
North Spore’s Pink Oyster Mushroom Grow Kit not only produces oyster mushrooms that are a beautiful shade of pink, but the kit comes with all of the equipment you will need and easy instructions to grow mushrooms with ease. And, according to Steve Gabriel, “varieties like oyster and shiitake are much easier to grow and more reliable and much safer than mushrooms you would find in the wild.”
This kit comes with a sawdust block that is colonized by mushroom mycelium and a spray bottle for twice-daily misting. Simply open your kit, slice an ‘x’ into the plastic covering, and place it in a humid part of your home (like your basement or near a bathroom). North Spore notes that it will take about two weeks until harvest, with quicker results if your home has a higher humidity (around 65% humidity).
We haven’t had the chance to test this mushroom growing kit yet, but according to online reviews, it produces beautiful and plentiful results. Be aware that this kit does not guarantee additional harvests after your initial harvest, but many customers online reported second harvests.
How we chose the best mushroom growing kits
In the Good Housekeeping Institute Kitchen & Cooking Lab, I personally tried six mushroom growing kits. I also consulted Steve Gabriel, who is an expert on specialty mushrooms and agroforestry. Gabriel helped give tips on what to look for when buying a mushroom kit.
To determine which mushroom growing kits are the best, we considered price point, mushroom variety, level of difficulty, and how long kits would keep producing until they had to be composted.
What to consider when buying a mushroom growing kit
✔️ Mushroom variety: Mushroom kits come in numerous varieties, from shiitake mushrooms to white button mushrooms. When choosing which type of kit to buy, consider what you prefer eating or maybe a variety that's hard to find in your local stores. The time it takes to grow your mushroom kit, mushroom yield and growing conditions are determined by the type of mushroom you chose to grow. Varieties like morels will be much harder to grow because they are not usually cultivated and have a very long growing cycle of at least two seasons, while shiitake mushrooms or oyster mushrooms have a much shorter growing cycle of about a week.
✔️ Cost: Mushroom growing kits range in price (our picks here range from about $20 to $60). The type of mushroom you choose as well as the substrate it comes in contribute to the cost. In our research, we noticed that more unique mushrooms from smaller farms cost more than more common ones from more commercial companies, which is in line with shopping at a farmer's market or grocery store. Keep in mind that most mushroom growing kits cost more than simply buying grown mushrooms, but they give you the advantage of learning the art of mushroom growing and controlling what goes into your mushroom's growing environment.
✔️ Growing location: The majority of mushroom kits are for indoor use only, but some kits, like the Gourmet Mushroom Backyard Morel Mushroom Growing Kit, require you to have an outdoor space where you can plant mushroom spawn. Whether growing indoors or outdoors, look at the kit’s space requirements and ideal humidity levels before purchasing to ensure that you will be able to care for the kit correctly.
✔️Timing: Some kits need to be used immediately, while others can sit dormant for up to six months before starting the kit. If you have an unpredictable schedule, choose a kit that can be stored for a bit before starting so it does not rot.
✔️ Disposal: Mushroom kits are perennial and once they have produced a few harvests, they will no longer continue producing mushrooms. Keep in mind that you will need to dispose of your mushroom kit after you are finished with it. “Just because that mushroom kit is done fruiting, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t a useful thing," says Steve Gabriel. "What mushrooms do is break down organic materials and build soil." Rather than tossing it in the trash, consider finding a place to compost your mushroom kit, whether in your backyard or at your local farmer’s market.
Why trust Good Housekeeping?
In the Good Housekeeping Institute Kitchen & Cooking Lab, Eva Bleyer has tested everything from ranges to juicers to kitchen scales. As a trained chef from the Natural Gourmet Institute with a background in health-supportive cooking, she has a great deal of experience cooking all varieties of mushrooms. She also earned a B.S. in Food Studies, Nutrition, and Public Health from New York University, where she studied food systems and sustainable agricultural practices.
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