On the first day of Advent the postman gave to me, some mushrooms to grow in coffee…
My children (aged 4 and 7) were exploding with excitement this morning as they opened the first door in their Lego advent calendar – a special treat this year from Grandma and Grandpa. We also have the atmospheric beauty of another Jacquie Lawson digital calendar – this year it’s a seaside advent world with a puzzle, short video or mini-game each day. One of my friends even has a beer advent calendar – like a grown-up chocolate version, I guess. As usual, I’m off on a tangent with my advent journey – through upcycled coffee grounds to a harvest of oyster mushrooms, hopefully in a couple of weeks’ time.
The Kitchen Garden Pearl Oyster Mushroom Kit is from The Espresso Mushroom Company, featured in my recent post 10 Ethical Gardening Gifts for a Green Christmas. They kindly offered me a kit to grow throughout December and having grown mushrooms in the past and had successful crops, I was happy to give it a go. The growbag filled with recycled coffee grounds from 100 espressos needs to be soaked for 12 hours and then I’ll be keeping a photo record of the development of the mushrooms over December and updating on my Facebook page and on the blog.
The best kind of advent calendar
I’m intending to upload a few videos of the mushroom growing process to my YouTube Channel – if you’d like to see inside the kit, you can follow my mushroom growing exploits here. I’m pretty new to vlogging and it’s the first time I’ve narrated (not keen on the sound of my recorded voice – but then again, who is?), so any helpful hints will be gratefully received…
Here goes… and a very merry Advent to one and all. 🙂
What is your advent calendar this year – chocolates, art or something completely different? If you’d like to watch the development of the mushrooms and my other gardening activities, you can follow the blog below. Thanks.
Nic Wilson 
Looks fab, Nic. I’d like to try growing mushrooms too. I look forward to seeing the results!
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Thanks Judy – I’m just having tea and then off to pull them out of the sink and dry them a little. I’ve been making some vlogs of the process (with much cringing) and will be putting them on my Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/mydogwooddays and I’ll be adding photos each day. Then I’ll write another blog post when there’s something to report! Fingers crossed ☺
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Good luck with that, Nic. I’m just teetering on the edge of doing some videos, but I can’t stand my voice either. I guess it’s just a hurdle, a bit like starting the write a blog for the first time, and then it will get better with practice. I look forward to seeing yours. I love your blog.
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Thanks Judy, that’s encouraging and has really made my evening 🙂
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I’ve always wanted to grow mushrooms but have never heard of growing them in coffee beans! Have fun and I hope that they grow really well 🙂
#MMBC
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Hi Nic, growing your own oyster mushrooms sounds like fun. Will the fact that they’ve been grown in coffee grounds add to their flavour? This is the first year in forever that I’ve had an advent calendar and as much as I’d love a chocolate one, I’ve actually got a Yankee candle one. Which I am enjoying thoroughly.
Thank you for linking up with the #MMBC
xx
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Hi Debs, thanks for stopping by. I don’t think the coffee grounds will affect the flavour, but hopefully will feed them well and encourage speedy growth – which is certainly happening! A candle advent calendar is a new one on me – but I do love candles, so maybe next year 🙂
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Now this sounds interesting! Looking forward to seeing how you get on with this.
Like Debs, I also have a Yankee Candle advent, they smell amazing!
Thanks so much for joining in with #MMBC. Hope to see you tomorrow x
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Hi Jayne, thanks for stopping by. I have great photos from today – Day 11 on my facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/mydogwooddays of the pinheads just starting to turn into mushroom caps 🙂
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