You Don't Need a Damp Dark Cellar to Grow Mushrooms

Here's What You Actually Need

There's a picture a lot of people carry around in their heads when they think about growing mushrooms at home - a dark, damp cellar, or some kind of specialist grow room with humidifiers and grow lights running round the clock. It's one of the biggest reasons people rule themselves out before they've even tried. Or they've seen Clarkson's Farm and think they need an underground bunker!

We hear this constantly, so we wanted to let you know what you actually need. First off, you don't need a cellar, and you don't even need particularly good light. All you need is a worktop, a spot out of direct sun, and about 3-4 weeks to watch your mushrooms grow.

Where the cellar myth actually comes from

Commercial "button mushroom" growing does often happen in controlled, low-light environments - that part isn't wrong. Where the myth falls apart is when we start talking about growing more unusual mushrooms such as oyster mushroom, king oysters, shiitake or Lion's Mane. Growing one or two of our Grow-at-Home kits doesn't need anything like a commercial setup - a kitchen worktop or a north-facing windowsill is genuinely enough.

Mushrooms don't need darkness - most varieties are perfectly happy with the ambient light of a normal room, just out of harsh direct sun, which can dry out the growing medium too fast. And they don't need damp in the sense people imagine, either. What they need is humidity around the kit itself, which is exactly what a bit of daily misting handles.

What actually matters when you're short on space

If you're working with a windowsill, a corner of a kitchen counter, or a shelf, here's what genuinely makes the difference:

• A steady spot, not a special one. Somewhere the kit won't be knocked, moved constantly, or sat in direct sun for hours is more important than anything to do with "growing conditions."
• Normal room temperature. Nothing exotic - the temperature most homes sit at, at any time of your, is fine for the varieties we'd recommend to anyone starting out.
• A daily misting habit. It takes seconds and it's the actual substitute for all that "damp cellar" atmosphere you don't need to recreate.
• Airflow, not stagnant air. A kitchen or living room with normal air movement is better than a sealed, unused cupboard - which is often exactly where people assume mushrooms "should" go, and exactly where they shouldn't.

Starting small doesn't mean starting limited

This is where growing in a small space actually works in your favour rather than against you. A single grow kit on a counter is genuinely enough to get a proper harvest - several hundred grams of mushrooms from something the size of a shoebox. You're not compromising by growing small; you're doing exactly what the kit is designed for.

If you want the lowest-effort entry point, our Grow-at-Home kits are built around exactly this - no cellar, no dedicated room, no equipment beyond a spray bottle. Full kit instructions walk you through the misting routine and where to actually put it, step by step, so there's no guesswork.

The honest bit

Will a windowsill kit grow slightly differently to one in a purpose-built grow room? not really - a "different set up" is a long way from "won't work," and for the vast majority of people growing mushrooms at home, a kitchen counter is not just adequate, it's exactly what our grow kits are made for.

If you've been putting off growing mushrooms because you pictured a cellar, a grow tent, or some kind of dedicated setup - that's the myth to drop. All you actually need is a bit of counter space and 3-4 weeks of curiosity.

If you've been putting off growing mushrooms because you pictured a cellar, a grow tent, or some kind of dedicated setup - that's the myth to drop. All you actually need is a bit of counter space and six weeks of curiosity.

Where to next?

→ Shop grow kits

→ Get our book - Project Mushroom

→Join us online at one of our workshops this autumn

→ Read more on our journal

If you found this useful, you’re in the right place. We’re Lorraine and Jodie - the Caley Brothers - a small mushroom farm in West Sussex, eight-times medal winners at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and Gardeners’ World Live, collaborators with Kew Gardens, the Tate Modern and the RHS, and authors of Project Mushroom. Growing mushrooms is all we do, and sharing what we know is why we’re here.

The best way to stay close to what we’re doing - new varieties, growing guides, recipes, behind-the-scenes life at the farm and the honest reality of running a small mushroom business - is to subscribe. It’s free, it goes out twice a month, and we promise it’s always worth your time.

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