No fungus among us!

One of the funniest stories I remember about my sisters revolves around fungus.

Not fungus like mold or mildew, but mushrooms!

First a little background, I have two sisters: one a few years older and one that’s 12 years younger. I like to think that we influenced her a lot growing up. I also like to hope that she saw all our mistakes, took a mental note, and made sure she learned from our errors, so she wouldn’t have to repeat them.

I digress.

The story is, my older sister HATES mushrooms. She will seriously pick them out of food even if they’re puny! It’s ridiculous because, well… I LOVE them! They bring me joy. Especially when marinated in butter and garlic. But in any case, when we were kids, she told my little sister, at the precious mind-molding age of about 6 or 7 that mushrooms were really FUNGUS. And she did this everytime there were mushrooms at the dinner table. She effectively made my little sister believe that mushrooms were disgusting.

So, being the middle sister, I cried out for attention by trying to trick my sweet, innocent little sister.

I made her close her eyes and eat something. Of course, she was 6 back then, and she actually listened. Trying to get her to do that now would be a long, tedious journey through teenage drama-dom that I kind of avoid like the plague. (Haha) Anyway. I can’t remember exactly what it was that I gave her, but I do know there were mushrooms in it, and that she had one large mushroom in her mouth.

Sara: “How is it?”

Mini Sis: “It’s good!”

Sara: “Hahahahhaa. It’s mushrooms”

Mini Sis: “EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW”

You would think that by proving she liked them before she knew what they were, she would start liking mushrooms, right? Wrong. So incredibly wrong. To this day, she’s anti mushroom. It’s so crazy!

Alright. So the entire purpose of this long winded story?

I’m growing mushrooms.

An ENTIRE pound of them!

The directions tell me that it’s a piece of cake. 10 days and BAM, one pound of massive oyster mushrooms, ready for the eating.

I swear I did exactly what the directions told me to do:

Slit bag, check.

I obviously have horrible eye-balling skills. I believed it would it in the jar all the way until I placed it on top and felt pretty ridiculous.

Lucky me, came up with a better solution.

Soaking the mushroom bag.

24 hours later, I shook it off, put it up near the window and spritzed it twice a day.

And after 13 days, all I had was a sort of damp looking white brick with black stuff on it. Not far off from the way it looked when I originally got it.

In general, I’m trying to be patient. My coworker, who bought it with me and started on the same day, decided to be more proactive.

She called them and sent them a picture. I guess they didn’t anticipate Hawaii’s warm weather, since these mushrooms typically enjoy 70 degree weather. So high maintenance! Haha.

I decided to wait it out.

…It’s now been 55 days.

Aside from a gaping crack, there’s nothing really going on with them. So, as the rep instructed, I soaked them again.  When my coworker did this trick, she sprouted mushrooms that very weekend! So here’s to hoping that my next update will be a recipe with fresh and delicious oyster shroomies!

Tags: Gardening, Mushrooms