Growing Mushrooms with Kids: A Simple Term-Time Project

Cress seeds on cotton wool. Broad beans in a jam jar. Sunflowers against a garden wall.

Most of us started growing with one of these, and we'd put mushrooms right alongside them: simple, quick and rewarding, and a simple wonder we should all give a grow.

Like anything in nature, nothing is 100% foolproof, but mushrooms are forgiving. All they ask of you is a light mist of water to stop them drying out.

Why mushrooms make a good first growing project

If you're looking for a first growing project for a child, mushrooms tick more boxes than you might expect:

It's quick enough to hold their interest. Three to six weeks from start to harvest fits neatly into a school term.
There's a hidden world to discover. Mycelium (the mushroom root) usually grows out of sight, and here children get to see how it works.
No garden needed. A worktop and a spot out of direct sun will do, so it works in a flat as well as a house with a garden.
It ends with dinner. A real harvest of delicious mushrooms to cook and eat together.

Start with the basics: how mushrooms grow in the wild

What we call a 'mushroom' is only the visible part. The real organism is mycelium, a network of fine white threads that spreads through soil, wood and leaf litter, almost always out of sight. In the wild, it's something you'd only ever see by accident, turning over a decaying log on a walk in the woods.

Growing mushrooms indoors brings that hidden part into your home. Our coffee, book and vase kits show you how mycelium grows, which makes them as much a lesson as a project.

Working with something as ordinary as used coffee grounds an old book, can teach children a lot about how mushrooms grow in the wild, without ever leaving the kitchen or classroom.

A 4-6 week project, step by step

Whichever kit you choose, the routine is much the same.

Weeks 1 to 3: grow the mycelium. Inculcate your chosen materials; a book, used coffee grounds or sawdust from our Mushroom Box kits - pop the kit somewhere dark and out of the way, and leave it be. There's nothing to do for the first 21 days. This is the patient part, and the growing part of a mushroom that most people have never seen - we encourage everyone to watch the transformation.

Week 3: into the light. Bring the kit out into the light and open it, following the instructions that come with it - despite the many myths surrounding mushrooms, they actually need the light to grow and we want you to see them develop - so no damp dark cupboards or cellar needed here!

Weeks 4 to 6: mist and harvest. Using your plant mister, give the mushrooms a light mist of clean water now and then so they don't dry out, and in about three weeks you'll be harvesting your own crop.

Then comes the best part: eating them

At the end there's a proper harvest and a good reason to cook together. Mushrooms simply fried on toast are hard to beat.

Which kit should we start with?

If you want the most hands-on way to learn how mycelium grows, try one of our coffee, book or box kits. If you want the simplest way in, a Ready-to-Grow kit is hard to beat. Either way, you'll be growing your own mushrooms in a few weeks.

See our full selection of mushroom growing kits for kids or read the kit instructions to see what the day-to-day looks like.

Growing mushrooms on a book

A 6 week project, inoculating an old, unwanted (it'll be unreadable after) book. See how the mycelium weaves its way round and through the pages, binding them together, as it would do in the soil or undergrowth in our gardens and woodlands.

There's not much in the form of nutrients in a book, but you'll get a crop of edible mushrooms after about 6 weeks.

£15.50

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Growing mushrooms on used coffee grounds.

By collecting your home used coffee grounds, or asking a local cafe for a kilo of their freshly used grounds, you can be inculcate your grounds in as little as three weeks. In this time, you'll witness daily changes as the soft, dark brown, coffee smelling grounds transform to a white, solid and mushroom smelling substrate block, that'll get you harvesting your first mushrooms just 3 weeks later.

Your old coffee grounds could give you up to 3 harvests of delicious grey oyster mushrooms, and is how we started growing our very first mushrooms at the original Caley Brothers HQ.

£15.50

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Our Mushroom Gift Boxes

The great thing about our mushroom gift boxes is the simplicity and variety they offer.

Inside is all you need to get growing - sawdust, instruction booklet and stickers. All you need to do is choose what mushroom to grow. A unique voucher allows the recipient to claim their free, fresh spawn that we send out from the farm when they're ready to grow.

A simple 6 week project, very similar to our coffee kit just more variety and we supply the substrate.

£22.50

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Our Learn & Grow bundle

For the curious and keen. Our learn and grow bundle couples one of our Ready-to-Grow mushroom kits, with a copy of our jargon free, project book, and a water mister. There's not much more you'll need to inspire and get your mushroom curious person growing and learning more about the wonderful works of mushrooms.

£50

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Caley Brothers Growing mushrooms on Logs

Outdoor growing for the adventurous

This hand on, drilling, hammering and applying soft wax project is a great afternoons work. Inoculating a hardwood log is one of the original ways to growing mushrooms outdoors. As a heads up, it can take over a year for your mushrooms to become fully colonised in your log once inoculated, but then after you could see mushrooms popping for 3-5 years after.

All edible, all curious and a great asset to any garden. Choose your mushroom type, and source your own hardwood log- it'll need to be freshly felled.

£18.50

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We've put together a selection of our favourite products, growing projects and bundles to inspire your young person to get growing their own mushrooms.

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We're passionate about helping people learn where their food comes from, exploring the wonderful world of mushrooms and demystifying some of the preconceptions and worries that surround them.

By growing your own, you can discover the incredible variety of edible and delicious mushrooms available, while enjoying the experience of growing something from scratch.

Mush love!