How to Cultivate an Agaricus Mushroom Farm

Buy Agaricus spores from a commercial seed provider to ensure you get the correct spores. It is easy to mistake an edible species of Agaricus for a poisonous mushroom.

Fill the largest available container with at least 3 inches of fresh compost. Heat the compost at 140 degrees Fahrenheit for at least four days, until it no longer smells of ammonia. A sufficiently large amount of compost can reach this temperature without an oven, although private gardeners typically require an oven to provide additional heat.

Move the compost container to the spawning room and place the Agaricus spawn on the compost. Plant solid spawn under the compost, or sow powdered spawn on the surface of the compost.

Keep the spawning room at 75 degrees until the Agaricus mushrooms sprout, which should require less than three weeks.

Cover the compost with 1 inch of thick loam, also known as casing soil. The purpose of the casing soil is to allow the accumulation of gas in the compost that will improve the production of the Agaricus mushrooms.

Lower the temperature in the spawning room to between 50 and 62 degrees. Keep the soil moist until mushrooms grow caps, which should occur after an additional four weeks of growth.

Harvest the mushroom caps before they reach 2 inches in diameter. Your mushroom farm should continue producing mushrooms for at least six weeks.