Home fruiting block guide to fruiting

Your grow-at-home kit is all set up to grow and it's starting to push out the tape at the fruiting slit -- let's grow some mushrooms!

Find a good spot for your mushrooms to grow:

Ambient daylight (not direct sunlight), either from a window or nice, bright artificial light.
Normal indoor temperature of around 70 degrees F.
A surface that won’t be damaged by moisture (kitchen countertops are great). A good alternative is to just place your fruiting block on a cookie sheet
A place where you’ll see it often so you can enjoy watching it grow and won’t forget about it.

Remove the protective tape from the fruiting slit.

Start maintaining a high-humidity environment for your fruiting block. There several ways to do this:

Use the included humidity tent (this is what we recommend for beginners).
- The humidity tent has holes in it that allow air movement so that there is enough fresh air for your developing mushrooms while still maintaining a higher humidity environment that the mushrooms need. To use the tent:
- Find the side that opens (it is effectively a bag) and open it, then roll up a “cuff” on the bottom, like with pants legs that are too long. This cuff will help the tent to stay open and to stand upright over your fruiting block. If you are growing more than one block at a time, you can even stack two fruiting blocks on top of each other under a single tent.
- Use clean water in your spray bottle to spray the inside of the tent well -- be sure the inside of the tent is covered in small droplets. Then place the tent over the fruiting block, being sure to leave space at the front for the mushrooms to grow. You don’t want them to be touching the tent.
- Remove and spray inside the tent whenever you notice it no longer has moisture on the inside. Typically twice a day will be enough.

Humidity tent in use on grow-at-home fruiting block

ALTERNATIVES TO USING THE HUMIDITY TENT:

To do this, it is important that you not spray directly onto the developing mushrooms, as this can damage them. They are particularly delicate when they are very young.
Set your spray bottle to a very fine mist and spray ABOVE the mushrooms, allowing the mist to settle down onto them.
Do this several times a day, as needed, but always make sure that you allow water on the mushrooms to fully evaporate before re-spraying

Be sure it isn’t over-humidifying the fruiting block itself, as too much moisture can cause bacterial growth on the mushrooms