Oyster Mushroom Fruiting Bag

One order is inclusive of one 1kg/35.27oz white oyster mushroom fruiting bag.

Unlike most mushroom grow kits out in the market, our mushroom fruiting bags do not come in any unnecessary cardboard packaging (save the trees!), and do not come with any unnecessary accessories (e.g. plastic spray bottle, etc). Ultimately, this means less trash + a smaller carbon footprint + our fruiting bags are cheaper.

MUSHROOM GROWING 

• Has a lower carbon footprint vs growing most other types of food
• Has a lower water footprint vs growing most other types of food
• Repurposes discarded materials (i.e. hay, sawdust, rice bran) for substrate
• Requires minimal effort and resources (i.e. water, time, land use, fuel, electricity, manpower, etc.)

ONE OYSTER MUSHROOM FRUITING BAG 

• Can produce 70 to 125 grams of mushrooms per bunch or per harvest*
• Can produce up to 500 grams of mushrooms throughout its life cycle*
• Can produce mushrooms over the span of four to five months*

*Provided that ideal growing conditions are met and maintained. Humidity is key.

WHAT YOU NEED 

• Space
  A small, clean area to setup your fruiting bags.
  
  
• Humidity
  A clean, water spray bottle to mist your fruiting bags and provide moisture. Optional: damp sheets of cloth and/or cardboard, a bowl or tray of water
  
  
• Light
  Some indirect sunlight (as in a living room), or artificial/fluorescent light
  Note: Mushrooms do not have chlorophyll
  
  
• Oxygen
  Normal air flow for mushroom respiration (yes, they breathe like we do)

GROWING YOUR MUSHROOMS 

1. Select a space
Find a cool, humid spot for your mushroom grow bags. Choose a clean space that you can mist with water— away from any electrical sockets, couches, beds, or wooden furniture/flooring. You can set your fruiting bags up in an unused shoe rack, an old CD rack, perhaps a large box, or even just on the kitchen counter. Clean and disinfect the area! The more sterile the environment, the better. Do not put the mushrooms in a sealed container as they must be able to breathe. (If you do put the mushrooms in a container, make sure it isn't airtight, and that you regularly open the container to give the mushrooms fresh oxygen. They need to breathe.) Do not put the fruiting bags where they will be directly exposed to the sun, or to a lot of wind. They need light (indirect), but they have to be in the shade. Anywhere indoors should be fine, as long as they aren't in total darkness. The more humid the environment, the better. 

2. Open the fruiting bag
Remove the piece of paper covering the mouth of the bag. Do not remove the plastic ring. Refrain from touching the substrate and/or the mouth of the fruiting bag, to avoid contamination.

3. Mist the fruiting bag
Gently mist the mushroom bags using a spray bottle. You can do this at least twice a day, or as many times you believe is necessary in keeping the area consistently humid. To raise the humidity around the mushroom fruiting bag, we recommend draping or installing damp towels, damp wads of cloth, or wet cardboard in close proximity to the fruiting bag. The wetter, the better. (A humidifier is also a great tool, as long as it only diffuses clean water.)

IMPORTANT:
The goal is to make the area around the bag as humid as possible, not wet/soak the bag. Mushrooms like kulob, damp, muggy, humid, environments.

TIP:
Keep the spray bottle next to your mushrooms and gently mist them whenever you pass them.

4. Let the mushrooms pin
Be patient. Keep misting the fruiting bags. Eventually, you will see white fluffy fungal formations form at the mouth of the fruiting bag. Do not freak out. Those are the mushrooms. Mushroom pinheads may begin to form within a few weeks of spraying. Gently mist your mushrooms, but do not spray or splash water directly onto the pins or into the substrate as this could lead to contamination. You do not want drops or pools of water to form inside the bag. (If this happens, it's okay, just pour/drain as much of it out.)

5. Let the mushrooms fruit
Mushrooms will bloom almost overnight (over the span of a couple of days). Mist your growing area with water regularly until the mushrooms open up and flatten out.

6. Harvest your mushrooms
Wait for the mushrooms to really blossom and open up. The deep dimples at the center of the mushroom heads will become shallow and start to disappear. The best time to harvest is when the edges of the mushrooms, from curling downward, start to level out and flatten. Gently pull/twist the entire clump of mushrooms off. It should break free from the spout of the bag cleanly, and easily.

7. Repeat the process
Do not throw the bag after your first flush, as your mushroom bag will still continue fruiting. After your first flush, continue misting the fruiting bag. Don't get impatient. You should get smaller flushes once every few weeks or so. If you care for your bag, it can keep producing for up to four or five months.

FOR A LARGER HARVEST
Alternatively, if you want bigger harvests but a shorter life span for the bag, you can open the bag or cut a larger hole into it. You'll get larger flushes but the bag won't last 5 months. In total, one bag can produce up to half a kilo of mushrooms. It's your call whether you want that fast or stretched over x number of months.

ONLINE SUPPORT 
Mushroom-growing is a lot easier than it looks. If you've got questions, please feel free to contact us, or create a post on the food-growing community (and learning and troubleshooting platform) that we run: Manila Grows Food 

Also check back here. We're planning to update our website with more information and post a proper mushroom-growing article soon. 

This mushroom fruiting bag is made of Polypropylene (PP). Polypropylene is a “thermoplastic” used in mushroom farming for its ability to hold mushroom substrates through pasteurization. Polypropylene fruiting bags won't melt/degrade/leach unless exposed to sustained temperatures of 266 to 340 °F. The material is considered safe for use and re-use with food, compared to other plastics. Not exactly zero waste, we know.

While we ourselves avoid using plastic as darned much as we can, as we practice zero waste in our home, we also take a lot of factors other than packaging into consideration when making our purchases. Most other food types require an inordinate amount of resources (i.e. water, land, fuel, energy, fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics, feed, packaging, etc.) to be grown, transported, and stored. (It is important to note that most of these resources also come in packaging.) Getting a mushroom fruiting bag is sort of like getting a seedling in a seedling bag, except you're growing mushrooms, instead of plants. All things considered, mushroom production has a much lower carbon footprint than the production of most other types of food, and an even smaller water footprint. If you're looking to minimize your impact on the environment, mushrooms are the noms to nom!

You may return spent mushroom fruiting bags to us. We can compost the substrate for you, and take the plastic rings/spouts back to our partner mushroom farm for reuse. We can also reuse the PP bags as seedling bags for the food forest we are building at Rocco's parents' property in Batangas. Mushroom fruiting bags must be intact.

We allow bulk orders for mushroom fruiting bags. Having a number of bags fruit simultaneously is how you 1. get your ROI on mushrooms right away, and 2. really start to eat mushrooms on a regular basis.

Our wholesale prices are as follows:

• 5 to 10 fruiting bags = PHP 70 / bag
  Please use the following code on checkout: 
  5FRUITINGBAGS
  
  
• 11 to 20 fruiting bags = PHP 60 / bag
  Please use the following code on checkout: 
  10FRUITINGBAGS
  
  IMPORTANT:
  Motorcycles can only transport a maximum of 20 fruiting bags (and no other items). Please select "Local Delivery" upon check out. 
  
  
• 21 to 50 fruiting bags = PHP 50 / bag
  Please use the following code on checkout: 
  20FRUITINGBAGS
  
  
• 50 fruiting bags or more = PHP 45 / bag
  The maximum number of fruiting bags 
  Please use the following code on checkout: MASTEROFTHESPORE
  
  

Please send us an email if you would like to make a bulk purchase, even when the product is marked SOLD OUT on our website.

We accept payments through the following gateways:

- PayPal
- GCash
- Bank of the Philippine Islands 

You will be provided payment options and instructions during order check out.

You will be presented the following pick up and delivery options upon product check out:

PICK UP

We allow personal pick-ups. Our pick-up location is within Salcedo Village, Makati City. The specific address will be provided to you when you select the PICK UP option during checkout. You may also book with a courier service (i.e. Grab / Lalamove / Angkas / Mr. Speedy / etc.) of your own choosing to pick the items up.


SHIPPING

LOCAL DELIVERY
We ship across Metro Manila via Grab / Lalamove / Angkas / Mr. Speedy / etc. Shipping rates vary and are based on your zip code. The "Local delivery" option will be visible upon checkout if your delivery address is within the areas we service.

NATIONWIDE SHIPPING
We now also ship parcels nationwide on a weekly basis via Blitz/LBC. The total weight of your order must be under 2 kilos, and should not include any perishable / food / plant products.

PACKAGING

Please expect all items to be packaged in very minimal used / recycled / secondhand paper bags or cardboard boxes. We try to minimize our carbon footprint where we can, when we can, and as much as we can, and avoid procuring new packaging materials for our products.

All single-use packaging materials, no matter how "eco-friendly," take an inordinate amount of resources (e.g. water, fuel, electricity, trees, etc.) to manufacture. This is why we prefer to solicit used paper bags and boxes via Buhay Zero Waste Preloved, an online decluttering and dumpster-diving platform that we run.Our parcels won't always look pretty, but they have a much much smaller impact on the environment than parcels that use brand new "eco-friendly" packaging materials.