Is your garden covered with snow? Are you lamenting the lack of fresh vegetables at the farmer's market? Well, you can still grow something fresh indoors. Ever considered mushrooms? These not only grow in your kitchen, they use something recycled for growing matter!
This mushroom kit from Back to the Roots grows between 2 and 4 pounds of mushrooms, and each kit also uses just recycled coffee grounds as its growing medium! The grounds are from Peet's Coffee & Tea. Every week Back to the Roots, which is based in Emeryville, CA, collects about 10,000 pounds of grounds from the shops and repurposes them into these DIY mushroom kits.
The way the kits work is simple: Open the box, mist on a little water, and watch the mushrooms grow.
I bought one of these for my husband for Christmas and I'm getting a little impatient, waiting for him to get it going! I want to see those little mushrooms sprout!
• Find them! Easy-to-Grow Mushroom Garden
Have you ever tried one of these, or another mushroom kit? What did you think?
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A friend of mine received a mushroom log for Christmas and I have never been more jealous. You just soak it in water and leave it out, and the mushrooms start blooming!
This is such a good gift [for me].
I have a shiitake kit growing right now, and we just harvested our first mushrooms. Ours is from Fungi Perfecti.
See it in action here: http://www.brittanypowell.com/home/shiitake-mushroom-kit-phase-two/
Another vote for Fungi Perfecti! They are awesome and have been making reliable home kits for ages.
I bought this exact kit for my dad's wife this Christmas and it turned into a nasty stinky mess. I wasn't there to witness it, but I can't imagine they did something that wrong. Really bummed!
Great post! I'm doing this!
I have received this as a gift and have given them as gifts. This is a vendor in our Ferry Plaza in San Francisco, they have amazing mushrooms and sell these mini farms online. It was one of my favorite items I have ever received I got a ton of mushrooms from one of these-they sell them online as well.
http://store.farwestfungi.com/mushroom-mini-farms.html
Can these be sent to California? I tried to order the mushroom log a few years ago, and it couldn't be sent.
How about supporting a young start-up of 2 young guys that gave up corporate jobs to grow them? the kit was awesome – bought mine at the whoel foods in Glendale … props back to the rots for a cool mushroom kit! :)
Nice! Great idea --- always excited to hear about great new ideas!
Also what has happened to our community. Seems like a lot of jealous competitors leaving troll like comments.
Updating from my previous comment because I got an email from the company today- best customer service ever!
I've wanted to try growing mushrooms ever since I read this interesting how-to: http://www.life-wharton.com/5/post/2010/04/first-post.html
A kit would be a great way to ease into it.
I bought several to give out at Christmas, got to keep one because the recipient was anti-mushrooms. Even though I've followed all the directions precisely, even the 'extra tips', still don't have mushrooms and it's been 2 months. I'm about to toss it and write it off, which is a shame, since it's such a good company.
@embryoconcepts: well, since someone already posted about issues with the kit and they were contacted by the company, why don't you try calling their customer service and see if they will ship you a replacement?
I bought this kit for my husband for Christmas, and like another poster commented, it turned into a moldy mess. We followed the instructions very closely. I even emailed the company to ask questions but got no reply. So all the money and not a mushroom to be found. Pretty disappointing!
@TVo @embryoconcepts This is Nikhil, one of the founders of Back to the Roots. Thank you so much for your purchase - we really appreciate your support! Our #1 commitment is to our customers, and we 100% guarantee our products. Please reach out to me at nikhil AT bttrventures DOT com, and I'll send you a replacement kit asap! I'm excited for you to grow your own mushrooms soon, and look forward to hearing from you!
Best,
Nikhil
'Just a heads up that the BTTR guys are on major backorder right now. I think I might try Fungi Perfecti so I can get this gift in time for a birthday.
Hi @happiness! We're on a slight backorder (~7 days), but if you have any special birthdays / events coming up, please reach out and we can definitely accomodate / expedite your order! We appreciate you thinking about the kits as a new gift idea! My direct email is nikhil AT bttrventures DOT com if you have any questions.
Thanks!
-Nikhil
I really recommend against purchasing from BTTR. TheKitchn has reviewed a grow-your-own-mushroom-kit from Mushroom Adventures before, and there's also Fungi Perfecti, as well as Far West Fungi that others in this comment section have already mentioned. These are probably considerably more reliable and professional companies than the one discussed in this post.
I purchased my kit from BTTR Ventures in mid-February, 3 days later was told there was a 7 day backorder, and then they didn't ship my order for 23 more days after that. I understand that the company was changing warehouses at the time but they broke several levels of customer trust: (1) if stock is on backorder, the company should post that on the website, (2) if stock is on 25 day backorder, the company should say so and not say they are on a 7 day backorder.
In short, I feel that BTTR Ventures manipulated me (and other customers) into buying their goods, when they were on severe backorder. If I had known at the 7-day backorder mark that it would've been another 23 days before I received my order, I would have cancelled it. I think this is what BTTR was attempting to avoid.
I am all for supporting "mom & pop companies", as the company is so persistent about advertising, but I will only support them if they are reliable and trustworthy. Instead, I feel manipulated into purchasing when they did not have stock and into not cancelling my order by telling me the product would arrive much sooner than it did.
A real mom and pop company builds trust, please consider taking your business elsewhere.
@happiness This is Nikhil, one of the co-founders of Back to the Roots. I just came across this post and want to deeply apologize for your experience with our company. At our core, our deepest beliefs with our company are to uphold the best customer satisfaction & service, and build a true community around this movement to rethink waste and grow food locally and more sustainably. We went through some major growing pains early this year, and cannot thank you enough for your patience and the patience of all our supporters who helped us get through it!
Please email me at Nikhil AT bttrventures.com as I'd like to send you and your family a free mushroom kit and apologize personally as well!
I apologize again and look forward to hearing from you soon @happiness!
Best regards,
Nikhil
We've got a specialty mushroom shop (Mycoboutique) in Montreal and they sell all kinds of kits, equipment and organize foraging events in areas outside the city. I'd love to try a kit!
I received this as a gift this past christmas and ... no luck in growing my mushrooms. I sent an email to the company to see if there is anything I can do to save my kit. I have been googling the product for some tips. I haven't received a response yet but it has only been a day. The product def looks like a great idea! I would suggest they include a "troubleshooting" section. ;)