A FOUNDATION IN diy oyster MUSHROOM CULTIVATION

Enrol now in Mushroom Alchemy, our online course that covers everything you need to know to grow Oyster mushrooms from different kinds of waste using circular and low impact cultivation methods.

AS POWERFUL DECOMPOSING FUNGI WITH UNIQUE CHARACTERISTICS, OYSTER MUSHROOMS HAVE SO MUCH EXCITING POTENTIAL TO BECOME OUR COLLABORATORS IN BUILDING RESILIENCE AND LOCAL FOOD SECURITY.

OYSTERS ARE…

  • Capable of digesting and recycling many different kinds of waste

  • Fast growing, high yielding and remarkably resilient to competitors and pests

  • Able to be grown year round, both indoors and outside

  • Do not require sterile environments or complicated equipment to be cultivated

  • High in protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals - they are extremely nutritious!

what’s inside?

  • LEARN AT YOUR OWN PACE THROUGH 8 CHAPTERS OF COMPREHENSIVE, MULTIMEDIA ONLINE LESSONS

  • DOWNLOADABLE RESOURCES AND ART

  • A COURSE MATERIALS BOX POSTED TO YOU WITH ALL THE SUPPLIES YOU NEED (optional)

  • 10 LED EXPERIMENTS TO GET YOU PRACTICALLY USING YOUR KNOWLEDGE

  • OPTIONAL QUIZZES AND ASSIGNMENTS TO REINFORCE LEARNING

  • AN ONLINE LEARNING COMMUNITY TO CHAT TO FELLOW STUDENTS, POOL KNOWLEDGE, GET ADVICE AND SHARE PROGRESS

  • LIFETIME ACCESS TO THE COURSE AND COMMUNITY

course curriculum

  • We’ll introduce ourselves and the course content, and give an overview of how you can interact with the course.

  • We’ll start by exploring the fundamentals of the vast and fascinating Kingdom Fungi, delving into how mushrooms naturally grow, reproduce, live and die in the wild. This foundational knowledge will equip you to apply these principles to mushroom cultivation effectively. Understanding the ‘why’ behind each step of the growing process is key to becoming a confident and skilled mushroom grower!

  • This chapter will look at mushroom cultivation in context and inspire you to appreciate why growing mushrooms is so remarkable. We’ll explore what role fungi could play in building a more resilient food system, as well as their broader applications—from innovative material design to the remediation of toxic waste. Plus we’ll introduce the star of the course: the Oyster mushroom! We’ll discuss why this particular species is our focus and what makes it an excellent choice for cultivation.

  • This is where you can begin to apply all of your fungi knowledge into growing- you’ll learn about the different stages of cultivation, timelines and best practises for hygiene. You’ll then dive into the first stage, inoculation, and make your first grow bag.

  • Next we’ll explore how to make home-made mushroom growing containers and filters from normal household waste like juice bottles, bin bags and more.

  • It’s inspiring to realise that you can transform materials destined for landfill into nourishing food by feeding them to fungi. At Rhyze, growing mushrooms on waste is at the heart of our farm model, and we’re excited to share the insights we’ve gained while working toward a circular and radically connected food system. In this chapter, we’ll guide you through selecting, sourcing, and using waste substrates including sawdust, coffee grounds, agricultural byproducts and human hair!—and then it’s time for a few more hands-on experiments!

  • Now you’ll learn about how to understand and best set up the next two stages of cultivation- incubating and fruiting. We’ll go into depth about what conditions you need to provide to keep the mushrooms happy and get optimum harvests including dealing with contamination and pests.

  • At this point of the course, you’ll have gained a strong foundation in mycology, along with practical experience in every stage of mushroom cultivation. From here, we’ll show you how to take the next steps—whether that’s continuing your production, exploring new species, or scaling up. You’ll also learn how to recycle spent blocks by creating an outdoor mushroom bed in a practical, led activity.

  • In this final chapter, we’ll talk about how to fully enjoy the fruits of your labor! You’ll learn the best practices for harvesting your oyster mushrooms, discover their nutritional benefits, and get inspired with creative ways to use them with a downloadable recipe zine. Plus, if you find yourself with more mushrooms than you can eat, we’ll provide step-by-step instructions for preserving techniques like drying and pickling.

WHO’S THIS COURSE FOR?

Whether this is your first foray into the fun and fascinating world of growing mushrooms, or you’ve already had some success and you want to deepen your knowledge, Mushroom Alchemy will cover everything you need to know. 

Over 9 multimedia chapters, this course will help you develop practical skills and the confidence to fill your fridge- and nourish your community- with an abundance of delicious, homegrown mushrooms.

We’ve made the course with a focus on waste based growing for people who, like us, are passionate about transforming our food system. You’ll learn how to grow your own food sustainably and accessibly- without relying on harmful practices, access to outdoor space, or expensive equipment.

This is an in-depth foundational course that offers a broad, holistic approach to mushroom cultivation. It’s not just a step-by-step guide that ends with the final lesson; it’s for anyone eager to understand the true potential of fungi. You’ll gain the tools and inspiration to continue growing and deepening your connection with the fungal world long after the course is complete.

BY THE END OF THE COURSE YOU WILL

HAVE A COMPREHENSIVE UNDERSTANDING OF KINGDOM FUNGI

Cultivating oyster mushrooms is the art of caring for a living organism- a member of the vast and largely unexplored Fungi kingdom. To succeed, you must first understand how it lives in the wild- its processes, needs, and lifecycle- so you can apply that knowledge to its cultivation.

HAVE THE CONFIDENCE AND KNOWLEDGE TO SUSTAINABLY GROW MUSHROOMS ON WASTE

You'll immediately put your learning into practice through guided activities throughout the course. These hands-on experiences will solidify your understanding of cultivation principles- you'll be harvesting enough Oyster mushrooms to nourish you and your family and friends in no time!

KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO SCALE UP AND CONTINUE CULTIVATING

With a strong foundation of knowledge, practical experience, and our guidance
- including advice on exploring new species, selecting equipment, and finding supplies -
you’ll complete the course equipped to continue growing with confidence!

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

  • You’ll have unlimited access to Mushroom Alchemy so you can work through the course at your own pace and revisit the lessons and resources at any time.

  • The course is designed for low-tek cultivation that doesn’t need expensive equipment or a lot of space- for equipment, all you need is a countertop and a kettle.
    There’s an emphasis on recycling, and we’ll encourage you to find some things in your recycling bin, but to do the activities in the course, you will need to buy some supplies.
If you’re in the UK, you can simply buy a Mushroom Alchemy Course Supply Box from our shop when you purchase the course. The Course Box is an economical choice because it contains just the right amount of spawn and substrate for the activities, as well as some other bits and bobs that will be useful.
    If you are outside of the UK or choose not to get the Course Box then that’s okay- we’ll provide the material list as well as information and recommendations of where you can get them.

  • Yes! When you enrol on the course you’ll get access to a discord server- an online community where we encourage you to share your learnings and successes with us and other students!

  • While we do briefly go into some outdoor growing techniques, the course is focussed on indoor cultivation.

  • Yes, anarchy is great, it’s certainly what the mushrooms would want

  • No. There are a handful of video lessons in the course, but the remainder are text and image lessons which can also be listened to as a ‘podcast’. There are also plenty of tables, gifs and illustrations for the more visually minded!


  • Yes and no. This course goes into a lot more detail than any of our in-person workshops but there is certainly some overlap, and good opportunities to consolidate the learning you have done at one of our in-person workshops.


  • Some of the text lessons in the  course are quite dense in parts and are suitable for scientifically minded and curious young people aged 13+. The experiments and videos however are more accessible and the experiments could be done by a child and parent together very comfortably. 


  • Yes. You can do the course and choose not to do all the ‘led experiments’ or you can buy the necessary materials yourself. We will not be shipping the boxes beyond the UK but all the materials should be relatively straightforward to source in other countries.

  • The course covers a lot of principles that are relevant to all mushroom cultivation, for example the needs of fungi and how to set up grow spaces. However a lot of the specific techniques covered such as the various waste substrates that can be used, or the use of household waste as growing containers is only really relevant to oyster mushroom cultivation.

MUSHROOM ALCHEMY ONLINE COURSE

We offer all of our workshops and courses with a sliding scale price. We do this to make our content more accessible and  in recognition that different people have different means. By paying a solidarity price you are ‘paying forward’ and are enabling us to offer reduced priced tickets to folk who may otherwise not be able to afford the course.

We’ve put 1,000+ hours into researching, writing and developing this course. We hope you find the price to be fair and accessible. However if you can’t afford the course as it’s priced and are really keen to access the content, or if you would like to get a group discount get in touch.

Note: if you have a voucher code, unfortunately it will only work with the regular or solidarity price course.

REDUCED PRICE

supported by your peers

£50

REGULAR PRICE

pays for you

£75

SOLIDARITY PRICE

pays it forwards

£95

buy a course materials box

The course has various practical experiments for you to do at home. For these you'll need some materials that you can begin to gather before the course begins, like cardboard, and also a few mushroom cultivation supplies like grainspawn and straw pellets which you’ll need to buy.

We've put together a kit box with the right amount of those cultivation supplies for £25. If you're not in the UK or you want to buy the things from another supplier, we've put a list of contents here too.

*available for UK postage only

£25