Love mushrooms but don’t know enough about telling friend from foe to go foraging? Merryhill Mushrooms kits are one way to have fresh picked without any risk and I’ve been putting a couple to the test.
(Ad. Given the kits to review but not paid for the post.)
My Merryhill Mushrooms journey didn’t get off to the best of starts thanks to a miscommunication. The kits, one for lion’s mane and the other for shiitake mushrooms, arrived the day before I was due to go away and they are supposed to be started as soon as possible.
However, the team at Merryhill, a family run business in West Sussex, assured me that putting them in the fridge until I returned would be fine and so it was. In fact, the shiitake were so keen to get growing, there were already small mushrooms forming when I returned.
Despite what you might think, neither type of mushroom needed to be kept in the dark. Direct sunlight isn’t good but a bright position is ideal.
The lion’s mane come in a box that has holes around the sides while the shiitake are in a ‘log’. Both need high humidity and plastic bags are provided to put them in. Paper towel is placed around the lion’s mane box and kept damp while the inside of the shiitake bag is sprayed twice daily to keep humidity high.
There were sizeable shiitake mushrooms forming within a week and these were ready to pick a few days later.
The log produced a crop of around 500g. The lion’s mane took another week and produced around the same weight in mushrooms.
There is a chance of a second crop with both and I continued to spray them daily, although the instructions warn that most of the shiitake crop comes from the first harvest. In fact, about a fortnight later, they produced two more mushrooms while the lion’s mane had another sizeable crop.
It’s the instructions that make the kits easy to use with diagrams of how to set up and pictures showing what ready-to-harvest mushrooms should look like. There are also frequently asked questions and tips for troubleshooting while the Merryhill Mushrooms’ website has more advice.
The kits (shiitake £18.95, lion’s mane £24.95) would be ideal as a gift – just make sure the recipient is going to be at home for at least a week to care for them.
For more details about Merryhill Mushrooms, visit the website.
You can read more of my product reviews here.
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