mushroom farming

How mushrooms are farmed in Kisumu, Kenya was explained to me yesterday and I thought it was pretty darn cool:

1. Lay an empty pint-size whiskey bottle on its side. Cut a piece off of a mushroom, and rub it on or place it on a piece of agar (the substance that's inside petri dishes). Place the mushroom spore agar inside the bottle. After awhile, you will begin to see spores growing on the agar.

2. Once the spores cover the piece of agar, scoop it out of the bottle and mix several pieces of the mushroom-agar into a 5-kilo bag of millet that has been soaked in water. The spores will feed even more off of the millet, and you'll see them multiplying like crazy.

3. Take a 4-foot piece of plastic sheeting and roll it together, making a tube. Fill the bottom with banana leaves, cassava leaves, dirt, etc - basically compost or detritus. Pour several bags of the mushroom spore millet into the tube. Take a large sterilized knife and make cuts all over the plastic tube.

4. Mushrooms will begin growing out the sides of the tube where you made the cuts. Harvest and enjoy!