Selfsufficientish.com

Hi All,
I have been away from this site for some time - since the website was being revamped, and it kept crashing on me! I am delighted to see that it is up and running again and that many of the old names are still giving their great advice.
My query is whether anyone has any advice for growing mushrooms. I read an article somewhere about buying oyster mushroom spawn, digging it a foot deep in the compost heap, and then sitting back and waiting for shed-loads of mushrooms to appear for decades to come. Is it really that simple? My subsequent researches indicate that mushroom growing can be very hit or miss, and most people seem to grow it indoors in laundry baskets and so forth. I do not have the indoor space for that, and am more interested in all the work happening outdoors on my allotment compost heap. There appear to be a number of websites that deal with mind-altering mushrooms, but I do not want to delve into those!
Any thoughts/guidance/advice would be most welcome.
Many thanks.
Squeaky.

Well I can tell you this, I bought two lots of spores from a mycologist via the Organic Gardening Catalogue. I followed the instructions and waited with excitement for my crops of delicious home grown mushrooms and to date I have harvested zero mushrooms, none whatsover, not even a tiny one. I have chucked all the stuff from the containers outside under the trees to take their chances in the wild, you never know, they may produce something one day

My daughter bought us a couple of those box kits - grown on coffee grounds. Sorry, I've forgotten their name but I'm sure they're easy to find. They grew pretty well, took a while to get going but once they started we had oyster mushrooms for quite a while. Not huge quantities but enough for once a week or so, I think.
I'm being a bit vague, sorry, it was a few years back. I remember having two boxes was good - as one was reviving we picked the other.

I bought a kit which involved growing mushroom spores on a wet toilet roll - unfortunately the only fungus I grew was mould.

I then bought one of those polystyrene boxes with mushroom compost in that you water and keep somewhere fusty. Unfortunately, not a single mushroom. I was fastidious about following the instructions too.

I was tempted by James Wong's article in the guardian - making hollows in your leaf pile (I have a lovely one at the moment) and adding mushroom pellets, but apparently it only works with one kind (oyster?) and I can't find the pellets anywhere, only spores.

So, I am going back to the farm shop for my mushrooms from now on! Good luck if you crack it, I would love to hear about it.

Thank you for the replies. It was the James Wong Guardian article which tempted me too! I may have a go of growing my own, but will not rely on being successful. I will let you know if it works!

This was the kit.
https://grocycle.com/

Maybe you could open one up and spread it in your leaf pile?