Growing Oyster Mushrooms

I ordered a kit to grow oyster mushrooms.  I got a plastic wrapped log in a card board box.  The instructions read to spritz the open end of the log with water and put the entire box inside a humidity tent.  Add sprays of plain water twice a day and mushrooms should be ready to harvest in 10 day.  The directions read to keep the log out of direct sun light but some indirect light is necessary.  Also keep it between 55 and 80 degrees.

So I did what I was instructed to do.  I spritzed it twice a day for 10 days.  Nothing happened.

On the 15th day the weather got warm.  The temperature in my house got above 70 degrees and that is when I saw growth occur. Only one mushroom sprouted and it grew.  Eventually it grew into the cardboard side and into the cardboard.  I cut it off and used it in cooking.  The mushroom tasted fine but the shape was too large to use in any manner except diced.  I scraped off the end and tried it again.

This time many mushrooms grew.  Here is a fork so you can judge the size.  This is how the oyster mushrooms looked on Wednesday.  Looks to me like mushroom growing will be more productive in the summer when the house temperature varies more than it does in the winter.

Today is Friday.  Saturday will be a good day to harvest these mushrooms.  Then I  will scrape off the end of the log, soak it in water, close it up inside the cardboard box and leave it in the dark for a week  When the week is up I can open the box and start the process again.  So far this method has not been cheaper than buying mushrooms at the store.  If I can get four crops out of this log, I might just come out even financially.