Growing mushrooms with children: what works and what disappoints

A grow kit on the kitchen table is one of the few things a six-year-old and a fourteen-year-old both find fascinating. Something that is bigger in the morning than it was last night beats almost any other nature project. But not every species and not every approach works with children, and the disappointments are predictable. This is what we see working.

Which grow kit works best with children?

The pink oyster, no contest. It is bright pink, grows from pinhead to fan within a week, visibly doubles daily and wants the warm room where children already are. A child sees a difference every morning, and that is exactly what holds attention. The common oyster mushroom is second choice: slightly less spectacular in colour, but just as fast and easier in a cooler room. For a two-week school project, these are the two that finish on time.

What disappoints?

Anything that requires waiting. An inoculated log in the garden is a lovely patience project for an adult; for a child, a year and a half is the same as never. Do logs by all means, but do not sell it at home as "our project", because by the time anything happens the child has forgotten. Slow species like reishi and maitake do not belong in a first children's project either. And a block put in a dark cupboard "because mushrooms like the dark" produces long stems and disappointed faces; light and fresh air, as always.

How do you turn it into a project?

• Put the child in charge of the spray bottle. Misting twice a day is a task with a visible result, and it creates ownership. A spray bottle with the child's name on it works wonders.
• Measure and draw. A ruler against the biggest cap, every day at the same time, and the result in a notebook or on a strip of paper on the wall. Children who write the numbers down themselves want to know the next day whether they were right.
• Photos from a fixed spot. Same corner, same distance, one photo a day. After two weeks you have a little film that always impresses at school or at the grandparents'.
• Let them harvest. Twisting and pulling at the base is something a five-year-old can do. That moment, with a whole fan in two hands, is what it is all about.

Is it safe?

Yes. A grow kit contains one species, which you chose yourself and which is edible. There is no possibility of confusion as with mushrooms from the woods, and that makes the kit a good opportunity for the conversation about wild mushrooms: these we can eat because we know exactly what they are, those in the park we do not touch. Two practical rules: wash hands after misting and touching, simply because it is a living thing, and harvest oyster mushrooms before they get too old. An overripe oyster mushroom releases a cloud of spores, and although that is harmless for most people, children with asthma are better off not hovering over it with their nose. Harvesting young solves that and tastes better besides.

And the eating?

This is where the project succeeds or fails. A child who has watched their own mushroom grow will often eat it, even if they are normally a fussy eater. Fry the harvest together, crisp and with a little salt, as in our frying piece, and put it on the table as "Sam's mushrooms". A pink oyster loses its colour when fried and takes on a flavour reminiscent of ham; children pass that on to each other at school.

What comes after the first kit?

When the second flush is done, the project is finished and the child has completed something. Anyone wanting to continue can take the common oyster mushroom into a bucket of straw as the next step: messier, slower and needing more explanation, but it shows how it "really" works. And with a garden, a wine cap bed sets up something that makes giant mushrooms appear between the vegetables the following summer. That is waiting, but waiting with a surprise at the end.