has anyone tried the mushroom kits?

has anyone tried that?

They usually cost over $30, can they actually produce that much mushrooms if i just spend the same amount of money buying them from supermarkets?

and are they easy to take care of? can i grow them in a garage since it is hot most of the time.

The kits are pretty straight forward. Just require ( 70 +- 5 degrees), water, and darkness). As with most vegetables, you will be lucky to break even. But if you enjoy growing things, it is cheaper recreation and more beneficial then growing one of those Chia pets.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/2004-10-01/Grow-your-own-Mushrooms.aspx http://www.monsterguide.net/how-to-grow-mushrooms.shtml http://www.mushroomadventures.com/

While there is a lot of mushroom growing info on the web, it is dominated by those growing for hallucinogenic properties.

I have grown a few mushrooms from kits youngman and they are so easy even for a numbskull like me. The only time I ever got a problem was with the Shitake - I wouldn't advise growing that one if it's your first time. It's a bit involved and I didn't get a good crop. I'm growing wild parasol mushrooms in turf patches next year - this sort of growing is a bit addictive I'm afraid.

:-)) Rosie

how much mushrooms did each kit produce? I want to try it, if it actually produces more mushrooms comparing to the same amount of money to buy them from the market.

I would say they produced on average about 3 - 5 pounds weight over a period of about 4 months or so. Some kits can be kept going for a liitle longer. Not very cost effective really but nice to know you've done it yourself. If we were all to cost up what we put into our various gardens I'm sure we would find we made a loss - any price however, is a small one, just to know exactly where the produce comes from and what it actually contains. Besides, if you were to take up golf you would spend a fortune on just hitting a ball around a big field - at least this way you are keeping fit AND growing stuff to eat. Can't be bad.

:-)) Rosie

Oh, that is good to know. Growing mushrooms is not like growing other things which I can use the seeds or cutting to grow more.

Not but if you get really into it you can purchase spore in syringes, dowles and treated wood, also sawdust and paper which contains the spore. I haven't tried these yet - I'm working my way up LOL. Of course there's a sort of weirdness value attached to these products so they tend to be expensive. Maybe a Christmas present idea. Well, my OH gave me a spade for Valantine's day 2 years ago LOL so why not?
The best crop of mushrooms I had from a kit contained the chestnut variety - they just went on and on.

Won't the "free" mushroom soil recoup some of the cost at the end of the growing season?

mm, so chestnut mushroom is the most abundant one? how much did each kit produce? I am tempted to try one, but at least I want to get my money worth. =)

Well, I don't know how big the kits are in your area Savin but the ones I'm talking about are foam container around 15 inches square so not much compost I'm afraid.
I think I paid about the same for my chesnut mushroom kit as you are thinking of paying Youngman only in euros LOL.and they produced around 5 lb of fruits - or fruiting bodies maybe(?)

roseimp I knew it wasn't much, but still a nice little bonus. I noticed lots of posts here lusting after mushroom soil. LOL

so roseimp, you seemed to have a lot of experiences with the mushrooms, which one will produce the most and easy to grow? is it the chestnut mushroom as you suggested? if i grow it in the garage, which the temperature should be warm most of the time, will they grow well? Is it the right season to grow or should i wait till spring or summer?

i am very tempted to buy one now after reading what you wrote.

I don't think I'm at all experienced youngman - I've only grown 3 boxes of them. The first I tried were the ordinary button type. First of all you have to fool them into thinking it's autumn so it's best to start them off at a time of year which is starting to cool down. You put the container in a warm room and spray with water twice a day and as soon as white threds start to show in the compost move them to a cooler room. In a couple of weeks you should have the first "flush" which is usually only a dozen or so mushrooms. When this flush has finished repeat the whole process, moving to a warm room then moving to a cooler one. The next flush produces a lot more mushrooms over a longer period. The best were the chestnuts - they kept going for nearly 5 months. The shittake were rubbish! I only got a handfull and the kit was quite expensive.
Good luck anyway and keep us posted about how you get on. I'm in the middle of moving house so have to come to my SILs house to catch up on these threds. It means I may be a little slow in replying at times.

Rosie