There are several reasons why you might want to make your own nutritive mix. For one thing, there's the cost of buying readymade mixes. Making your own nutritive mix is fairly simple, and by doing so, you may avoid much of the cost normally connected with growing mushrooms yourself. Of course, making your own mix will take a little effort, but the results are well worth it. A good nutritive mix for mushrooms is usually made from cow or horse manure. This cannot be used directly, as you would when fertilizing plants, but must be prepared and matured by a special process if you want to use it successfully for mushroom growing.

You start by taking a large enough quantity of equal parts of straw and any good kind of manure. You need to mix these well, until they form a thoroughly homogeneous mix. While mixing them, you need to keep adding in sprinklings of gypsum. Keep mixing this for about half an hour, then take a piece of sacking and cover the mixture carefully. You will find that the mixture will exhibit a steady rise in temperature that you must carefully observe. Wait until it reaches a hundred and sixty degrees F before attempting anything further.

The moment the temperature reaches a hundred and sixty degrees F you can go to the next stage. It involves removing the sacking. Mix everything well and remember to spray on lots of water while doing it. This will cause an immediate fall in temperature. When everything is well mixed again put the sacking back on and wet it nicely.