Pioppino Grow Kit

Using your Oak & Hazel Pioppino Grow Kit is for more experienced users, but the instructions are still fairly simple:

1. Examine the block to make sure that it is fully colonized. If it is not, leave it in a room temperature area until it is completely covered in white mycelium with the bag still sealed.

2. Once your colonized bag is ready, cut a corner off the top of the bag, letting in a small amount of fresh air. This will start the fruiting process. You are welcome to spray some fresh, clean water in the hole once a day to keep the air humid. If you have a fruiting chamber, now is the time to put it in the chamber. The process of adding humidity in this way is not strictly necessary, but may help dryer environments produce a greater success.

3. Once small pin mushrooms begin to form, continue to spray (if you are doing this) into the bag until the mushrooms are roughly an inch in size. Once you start to have clusters that are around this size, you will want to make vertical cuts along the short sides of the bag that start around the base of the substrate and go all the way to the sealed top of the bag, but keep the top in tact. This extra ventilation will allow air flow, but still have a canopy tent to keep things humid. Continue to spray once a day, but make sure you don't spray the mushrooms, just the top of the plastic. It should be lightly moist, but definitely not dripping wet.

4. Once your mushrooms have started to get thick and full and are several inches tall, cut the top open and peel the plastic to the sides of the substrate and let your mushrooms grow until they are full and ready to harvest.

A question that most people will ask is, "how many harvests do I get?" and the answer for Pioppino mushrooms is ONE. These mushrooms very rarely ever flush more than once, so I would consider it done when you have harvested your mushrooms.

Some additional things to consider:
1. Whenever handling this product, it's a good idea to use disposable gloves and/or wipe down any plastic you touch with isopropyl alcohol. Contamination is an ever-present possibility and can hamper your growth.

2. Pioppino mushrooms prefer generally warm environments, so room temp is great. If it gets below 65 degrees Fahrenheit, it will slow down and below 58 degrees, it will slow down dramatically. Also, if it gets over 74 degrees, you could run the risk of heat stress, so place in an according environment. This kit will not do well outdoors.

3. Our mushroom varieties don't have many particularities about light, but it's best to not leave it in direct sunlight for extended periods of time. There's an old adage about keeping mushrooms in the dark, and while there are species that do care about light, the kind you got from us, doesn't particularly care so long as it isn't in too much direct sunlight for too long. A lot of people grow theirs on a kitchen counter, too!

4. You'll know it's time to harvest when your mushrooms are full looking and the "veil" under the cap has just separated. If you wait too long, they start to spore and aren't at their peak anymore. Still good and edible, just not the absolute peak.

5. Cutting mushrooms off or pulling them off? that is the question. How are you supposed to get your mushrooms off the block? I recommend a good sharp knife or scissors and cut them free from the block, but you CAN pull them off, just cut any of the woody substrate off the base before consuming.

Watch the video instructions here:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TTDBHgp3T8k