Workshops + Tours

In Depth Mushroom Cultivation Workshop 26th of September.

A beginners class for the home grower

Full day workshop - 10am start

In-Depth Mushroom Cultivation Workshop (5 Hours)

Ever wanted to grow your own mushrooms — properly? This hands-on workshop takes you well beyond the basics, covering everything from our 2-hour introduction and so much more.

Over five hours, you'll learn the secrets to successfully growing mushrooms at home, with a focus on oyster mushrooms — one of the easiest and most rewarding varieties for beginners. We'll walk through the full growing process from start to finish: the different types of mushrooms you can cultivate, the language and terminology of the craft, and a complete overview of cultivation from spore to harvest.

You'll get properly hands-on with practical sessions covering:

• Sterilisation — the why and how behind keeping contamination out

• Inoculation — the techniques that give your mushrooms the best start

• Basic mycology — understanding how mycelium actually grows and behaves

• Starting a master culture — taking a small tissue sample from a mushroom and growing it into a culture of your own to take home

By the end of the day, you'll inoculate your own bucket with oyster mushroom spawn and substrate to take home, plus leave with a master culture you've started yourself — giving you everything you need to keep growing long after the workshop ends.

In the spirit of closing the loop on waste, we encourage participants to bring along a bucket with a lid, sourced from a local café or takeaway shop — the kind that would otherwise end up in landfill. We'll fill it with substrate on the day, turning a piece of rubbish into a fully functioning mushroom farm. It's a small act of recycling with a delicious payoff.

No experience necessary — just curiosity and a bucket!

Farm Tour

This workshop will be held at The Mushroomery - an operational small scale farm. You will get a tour of the farm and an insight into how a mushroom farm operates. Keep in mind that due to fungal contamination, it is important that you wear very clean clothes.

Your Teacher

Buttons Mira is the founder and head farmer of The Mushroomery, a micro mushroom farm that began in her backyard and has since grown into a five-shipping-container operation in Alphington, Melbourne. Buttons grows and supplies mushrooms to local restaurants, farmers markets, box schemes, and her own CSA members.

Guided by the ethics and principles of permaculture, she's building a farm that closes its own waste loops — turning what would be discarded into inputs for the next cycle of growth. She's a passionate advocate for making better use of marginal urban land, proving that serious food production can happen in unlikely corners of the city.

A self-confessed foodie, Buttons is on a mission to make farming visible in urban life — pulling back the curtain on where food comes from and helping city dwellers reconnect with the processes behind their plates. Her first book, The Mushroomery, brings together her approach to cooking and cultivating mushrooms, sharing both the practical craft and the philosophy behind it..

What you will learn

Skills and knowledge to grow your own oyster mushrooms at home.

What you will make

An oyster mushroom kit and an oyster mushroom agar culture.

What to bring

• A very clean recycled 5L-10L Bucket with a lid that you are not attached to and are willing to cut holes into (you will need this if you plan to take a kit home)

• Note pad and pen

What to wear

Very clean clothing and clean footwear suitable for a muddy landscape

Price - $165