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Product Description
Amazon.com
Your garden comes lovingly
packaged in our signature compostable box. A perforated center provides the perfect area for growing delectable, gourmet pearl oyster mushrooms.
Oyster Mushroom Growing Garden Kit
From Back to the Roots
The MUSHROOM GARDEN by Back to the Roots is quickest and easiest way to grow fresh, gourmet food at home. Just open the box, cut the plastic and mist twice a day with water (mister is included!).
A gorgeous, healthy mushroom garden waiting for you to help it grow! You’re looking at recycled coffee grounds enveloped in white “mycelium” or the “root” of the mushroom. A couple sprays twice a day with the spray mister (included in your box) will grow your beautiful gourmet oyster mushrooms in as little as 10 days.
How to grow your garden:
Congratulations--you’re officially a mushroom farmer. Your garden awaits in a recyclable box pictured on this web page.
You can farm mushrooms in 3 EASY STEPS:
1. OPEN the box,
2. MIST with water (spray mister included!),
3. HARVEST your delicious crop!
It’s Alive!
Yup. While not quite ready to eat, these eager day until you harvest. mushrooms started growing in just 8 days! With plenty of fresh air and misting, these mushrooms will be ready for your dinner table in no time!
Bonus Tip: Soaking the bag of coffee grounds and mushroom mycelium after cutting the + shaped slit overnight and up to 24 hours does wonders for encouraging a happy harvest.
By day 5 you can expect to see beautiful oyster mushrooms emerging in the garden.
Happy Harvest
You’ll know your mushrooms are ready for your next meal when they:
A. Lose their blue/grey color and turn into a lovely shade of brown, cream or white
B. They stop doubling in size everyday!
C. The mushroom’s lamella (or gills)underneath the mushroom cap begin to turn slightly yellowish.
They’re delicious! Enjoy them with your favorite pasta, as a main ingredient staple in delicious tacos or as a topping on your favorite protein.
Alejandro Velez and Nikhil Arora at our urban farm in Oakland, California.
The Back to the Roots Company Story
Back to the Roots was founded by Alejandro Velez & Nikhil Arora during their last semester at UC Berkeley in 2009. Two months away from graduation, and heading into the corporate world of investment banking & consulting, they came across the idea during a class lecture of being able to potentially grow gourmet mushrooms entirely on recycled coffee grounds. Inspired by the idea of turning waste into wages & fresh, local food, they experimented in Alex's fraternity kitchen, ultimately growing one test bucket of tasty oyster mushrooms on recycled coffee grounds. With that one bucket, some initial interest from Whole Foods & Chez Panisse and a $5,000 grant from the UC Berkeley Chancellor for social innovation, they decided to forget the corporate route, and instead, become full-time urban mushroom farmers!
Inspired by the idea of producing local, fresh food from what was an urban waste stream, Back to the Roots has since grown to create the Grow-Your-Own Mushroom Garden which lets anyone, across the country, grow their own gourmet mushrooms at home as well!
A Gift that Keeps on Giving
The company continues to grow and accomplish more than just the bottom line. Back to the Roots has:
- Diverted and reused more than 1 million pounds of coffee grounds from Bay Area landfills in 2011,
- Reached over 10,000 elementary school students through our “Inspire the Next” Facebook campaign,
- Sustained 10 East Bay school gardens and,
- Created 31 urban, green collar jobs in the community.
Produce a Healthy and Delicious Meal with Back to the Roots Mushrooms
Back to the Roots Mushroom Tacos
The Back to the Roots love their mushrooms--especially in taco form :)
1. Cook in a sauce pan:
- 2 tablespoons of oil
- A couple of cloves of crushed garlic
- A pinch of chili powder and cumin
- Veggies of your choice
2. Combine with beans, salsa, and/guacamole to your taste in a corn or flour tortilla
3. Garnish with fresh lime wedge and fresh cilantro
Product Description
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Customer Reviews
So, unwilling to throw $17.00 away, we read everything we could find on the web on Oyster Mushrooms. Then we cut 1/4 off the block and seeded a couple pounds of fresh, damp coffee grounds with the "seed".
We soaked the remainder for 48 hours This time we re-sealed the block in our vacuum sealer, cut an opening and covered the block with a clear plastic bag --placing it in exactly the same place in our kitchen. Mushrooms happened again! And again, even with the plastic bag serving as an incubator, they dried up.
Meanwhile, the mycellium in the fresh coffee grounds have taken off!
So, unwilling to give up, we resoaked the "Brick" and put in under a plastic cube. Mushrooms are forming again -- this time we think they will make it!
After much thought, it seems clear that some "bricks" of used coffee grounds are too compressed and dry to take on adequate moisture. We love the concept of re-use and think the developers of this product are on to something. The bricks are innoculated with ample spores, however the substrate at least in some cases is too compressed to have mushrooms survive -- even in a humid environment. If you try this kit, soak it for a long time and put it in a plastic cube or bell jar from the outset. Good luck!
We contacted customer service (twice) since they state on the site that they guarantee their product. After 2 days, no response.
UPDATE: 1/15/12
Last Tuesday January 11, the company finally contacted me and said they were committed to customer service, would replace it if it was dead and could I please send pictures. So I sent pictures, and they told me it was still viable but just a "late bloomer" and to send pictures again on Tuesday, 1/17. If the kit still didn't show any mushrooms, then they'd send me a new kit.
Wouldn't you know it, yesterday morning the kit started showing significant signs of mushrooms after about 14 days, and today they're much bigger (and more of them).
So, at this point, I would say it's a ok kit, but I just think they need to revise their marketing materials and change the "mushrooms in as little as 10 days" part. I was VERY close to throwing it away - twice.
Bottom line, be patient. If you get this kit and you don't have any luck, email the company with pictures of your kit(feedback@backtotheroots.com). They probably won't get back to you the next day, but hopefully they will within a few days.
Oyster mushrooms are mild in flavor, have a slightly nutty taste. The oyster mushroom absorbs other flavors well and change their flavor to go well with whatever you are cooking. You can use the whole mushroom the cap and the stem. They are easy to use in many different ways. They taste great just sauteed in butter. I saute and then add them to pasta. I also add them to stews or as ingredient for any sauce I make for cooking chicken. I also found they go great with any Indian sauce, like Pataks: Pataks Vindaloo Curry Paste 10 Oz
In this order you will receive 1 package of mushrooms (even though three packages are shown in a photo). However the product description does say that the total weight of the package is 2.6 pounds, and the title says that each kit is 3-pounds. So the info is there, but could have been more clear.
Ali Julia review
When the first crop was all done, I turned it arround and had more for the next week from the other side.
