🏠 How to Grow Enoki Mushrooms

Enoki mushrooms are winter-fruiting mushrooms with long white stems and delicate pinhead caps. Growing your own Enoki mushrooms at home is easy, especially if you use a starter kit – all you need to do is wet the pre-made growing block, cover it, and store it in a cool place until the mushrooms start to emerge. You can also grow mushrooms from scratch by preparing your own substrate and sprinkling it with the starter spawn, which you will keep moist for 2 to 4 weeks.

Steps by step How to Grow Enoki Mushrooms

Method 1 of 2: Growing enoki mushrooms from a starter kit

Buy an enoki mushroom starter kit. Mushroom starter kits are available online at specialized fungus websites. They usually come in the form of pre-made, ready-to-use growing blocks made of a compacted substrate, such as sawdust or straw. To start growing mushrooms, simply wet and store the block.
You can expect to pay around $15 -25 for a basic starter kit. The price can be higher depending on the seasonal availability of certain mushroom varieties.
A typical starter kit contains enough materials to grow mushrooms continuously for 2-4 weeks.
Water 1 cup (0.24 liters) of filtered water evenly over the growing block. Your grow block should arrive inside an insulated plastic container or sleeve. Remove the lid from the container and pour the water directly over the top and sides of the block. Try to wet as much of the substrate material as possible.
The more evenly you wet the growing block, the more area the mushrooms will have to start growing.
Your grow kit may specify a different amount of water, depending on the size of the block and the specific moisture requirements of the mushrooms.
Use filtered or distilled water, as tap water is treated with chemicals.
Cover the growing block container with a lid or plastic bag. If your container didn’t come with a removable lid, place a shopping bag or gallon-sized zipper bag lightly over the opening. This will help retain moisture inside, making it an ideal environment for rapid growth.
Do not seal or pinch the edges of the bag. Your mushrooms will need some air to grow.
You can also use some strips of moist newspaper (or any other type of lightweight paper) if you don’t have a plastic bag handy. Just make sure that the saturated newspaper is not heavy enough to weigh down the mushrooms as they emerge.
Keep the growing block in a cool, dark place. Place the covered container somewhere where it can stay at a constant temperature of 40-10 °C (4-10 °F). A shelf in your refrigerator or a dark basement or pantry will work well. You can also leave your growing block in a shady spot outside, as long as the temperatures don’t drop below freezing.
If you don’t have a suitable cool place to store your growing block, just put it on the kitchen counter. Enoki mushrooms are a cold-weather mushroom species, but they also grow well at room temperature.
Wait for 2 to 4 weeks for the first batch of mushrooms to appear. First, a fuzzy white substance called mycelium will appear on the outside of the block. Soon after, the mushrooms themselves will begin to appear. Once the small capsules are fully formed, they are ready to harvest for cooking or propagation.
Between the wood contained in the growing block and the plastic that retains the moisture, your mushrooms will have everything they need to flourish, so there should be no need to uncover them until they start to fruit.