Mushrooms!

One night in December, we found mushroom kits for sale at Weaver Street Market.  For $20, it just wasn't possible for me not to get one.  

This has been a very strange learning experience.

You cut a cross in the plastic bag and then soak the brick over night in a bucket of water.  After that, you mist it a couple of times a day with a little spray bottle that is included in the box.  It did absolutely nothing for a week.  then, one day, there were little .... crumbs on one edge of the part that was exposed to air.  In 3 or 4 days, we had actual mushrooms.  I trimmed off the ones that had gotten big enough to eat and the rest of the sprouts promptly died.

The instructions said that when you finish one crop, you can turn the brick over and repeat the process and get another crop.

After completely giving up on getting anymore from the first side, I decide to try again.  The problem was that there was now a hole in the plastic bag that held the brick of inoculated coffee grounds.

So, I cut the brick up and put the pieces, cut side down, in the plastic box that had previously held spinach and half filled the box with water.  We misted.  Nothing happened.  The pieces of coffee brick didn't appear to absorb any water.  It just sat there.

Last week I told Chuck that if it didn't do something soon, it was going in the compost.  I meant to do it this weekend, but I got a nasty cold and it wasn't doing anything but taking up space on the end of the kitchen table, so I never got around to it.

This morning, I sat down to eat a clementine and happened to glance at the box.

Let me just say, this is much bigger crop than came up with that cardboard box holding it.

Do you see the little nublets on the top edge?  That's more of them.