A Wired writer shares their year-long experiment growing mushrooms at home, testing five different methods across their house and garden to see which approaches actually work for beginners. The piece matters as a practical guide for hobbyists put off by the risks of foraging wild mushrooms, offering a candid, tested comparison of common home-growing kits and techniques rather than theoretical advice.

The methods tried included a shiitake mushroom log, an oyster mushroom spray-and-grow box, wine cap spawn buried in garden bark chips, oyster mushrooms grown from grain spawn in a bucket, and oysters and lion's manes in a monotub setup. Only two of the five attempts succeeded, with the shiitake log failing to fruit even after repeated soaking and instead developing mould. The author rates each method for difficulty, aesthetics and success, noting that mushrooms are highly sensitive to light, heat and contamination, making home cultivation trickier than it first appears.