Mushroom bags produce multiple “flushes,” (batches), the first one the most productive, then two or three more, each time with fewer mushrooms.  This is the third flush from a pinky bag:

Pink oysters are just too pretty:

It takes maybe three hours a month for “maintenance mode,” by which I mean doing the grain jars and four (more or less) bags. I spend more time trying out new strains.

I’ve been lazy, and had some overdue jars:

So far of the three strains I’ve grown, two came from commercial sources (pinkies from a mycelium syringe, blues from a spore print), but I’m kind of prideful of the black oysters I took as a tissue sample from a grocery mushroom.  I’m a little excited to be adding King Oyster, also from a tissue sample from a grocery mushroom.  I had to take it through a couple of generations, but it’s an enthusiastic grower:

As for costings, it’s about 30 cents per grain jar for the rye, a few cents per bag for the straw, and the plastic bags themselves are 50 cents each, but they can be re-used.  Counting all the flushes, I’m getting just under a pound per bag for the pinkies, and about 20 oz. per bag for the blues and blacks. 

Can you crack the code?

-R