Can You Grow Mushrooms in a Garage? (And Make Good Money Too?)

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Can You Grow Mushrooms in a Garage?

Mushrooms bring an “umami” flavor to any dish which is a mix of savory and meaty. No wonder mushrooms are used in cuisines all over the world. Mushrooms are low in calories but high in taste. Wouldn’t you love to grow your own mushrooms? But can you grow mushrooms in a garage?

It is actually quite easy to grow mushrooms in your garage for personal use. With some investment & effort you can even farm mushrooms in the garage commercially and earn a decent profit.

Mushrooms need high humidity, reasonable warmth and lots of fresh airflow to grow. A garage is a great place to grow mushrooms indoors as you could easily create the conducive environment. In the right environment, mushrooms can be grown in monotub grow kits, 5 gallon buckets or substrate blocks in polybags.

You could even turn an old 2-car garage (less than 500 ft.²) into a profitable side hustle or even a small business. Just setup a mushroom farm in your garage!

How to Grow Mushrooms in a Garage?

To grow mushrooms you require a substrate, usually in a container, mushroom spawns and the right environment.

The selection of container depends on the type of mushrooms you plan to grow. For example; you need a flat tray-like container for growing button mushrooms or shiitake mushrooms, whereas you can grow oyster mushrooms even in a 5 gallon bucket.

Growing Mushrooms in a Monotub Kit

This is the simplest way of growing mushrooms indoors. It is ideal if you want mushrooms just for personal consumption. The North Spore Boomr Bag Monotub Complete Mushroom Grow Kit has everything you need.

The monotub is designed with airflow and humidity controls. The manure-based sterile substrates, organic sterile grain bag with self-healing injection port, and coco coir casing layer provide mediums for colonization, incubation, and growth.

All that’s required is a spore syringe or liquid culture to get started!

Growing Mushrooms in a Bucket

Drill holes at the bottom of a 5 gallon plastic bucket for drainage. Next drill ¼” holes, a couple of inches apart, all around the bucket side. The holes are necessary for the mycelium to breathe as well as allow the mushroom to fruit through the holes.

You can use aspen wood chips as a substrate. It is better to pasteurize it by soaking it overnight in hot water. This kills the germs, if any, and makes the wood chips soft & moist as well.

The next step is to build up layers of wood chips and mushroom spores. You should buy the mushroom spawns from a reputed brand such as King Oyster Mushroom Spawn Mycelium or Pink Oyster Mushroom Spawn Mycelium from Better Fungi, for best results.

The last layer should be wood chips. Typically you will use 5 pounds of mushroom spawns for every 5 gallon bucket. Close the lid, keep the bucket in a dark corner of the garage. The mycelium is ready to colonize. The colonization process will take 10 to 15 days.

Fruiting Chamber

The next step is to encourage the mycelium to start fruiting by providing the right environment which is:

• High humidity (over 75%)
• Reasonable warmth (65°F – 85°F)
• High Air Exchange (Pull in fresh air rich in oxygen & moisture and exhaust out air with CO2 & spores)
• Low risk of contamination

The garage is a great place to build a “fruiting chamber” for mushrooms. Make it as big as you need using 2X4 studs and some polystyrene panels. You can find any number of YouTube videos that show you how to do it.

Mushroom Farming in a Garage

You can set up a small mushroom farming business in a 2- car garage (less than 500 ft.²). There are three levels of mushroom farming that you can go for.

Beginner Level

The beginner level is the easiest way to get started. You do not need to invest much and you could do it as a side hustle. All you need to do is, build a mushroom fruiting chamber in your garage.

Buy the mushroom “ready to fruit” block from a reliable supplier and you are good to go. The mushroom “ready to fruit” block comes in a plastic bag with the substrate already colonized. Pop it in the fruiting chamber and harvest the mushrooms 2 weeks later.

Medium Level

In the medium level you increase your profit margins by backward integration. Instead of buying mushroom “ready to fruit” blocks you make your own.

This of course requires additional setup and investment as under:

• Preparation Area: This is outdoors. You mix different substrates, put them in plastic bags, sterilize them to make the substrate blocks
• Lab / Clean Room: The spawn (which you buy from a reliable supplier) is then used to inoculate the sterilized mushroom blocks here
• Incubation Area: This is kept at a constant temperature so that the spawns can colonize the mushroom block. The incubation process takes 2 weeks

Intensive Level

Mushroom farming using the intensive method is the most profitable but also quite challenging. It is not recommended unless you have gained sufficient experience in the field. In the intensive method you make your own spawn.

Bottom Line

You can, quite easily, grow mushrooms in your garage. It takes less effort than growing vegetables in the garage. You could even scale up to mushroom farming in your garage as a side hustle or even a full time small business.

Thank you very much for reading the post. I do hope you found it informative and useful.