Mushrooms: That small dumpy room is enough for you

A small plate of fresh mushrooms costs between sh2500 and sh5,000. This is because mushrooms are an important ingredient in most delectable food items available across the world.

Most mushroom lovers cannot ever seem to get enough of them. These find a way atop a pizza or can be even cooked with a steak. There are many ways you can savour the taste of mushrooms in your regular items.

In Uganda, the demand for mushrooms is quite high, compared to the supply. Supermarkets and the common markets are all under supplied. There is some good money in growing mushrooms. For example, to produce a spawn that can give you mushrooms worth sh15,000, you spend sh2,000.

For those who do not want to produce their own ‘gardens', you can buy them at sh3,000-sh5,000 and all that you need is to maintain them. These ‘gardens' can be bought from various farmers around the country.

Mushrooms can be kept in any cool, not so lit room. It can be permanently constructed or makeshift, for example using papyrus on the sides and on the roof. It should, however, not be letting in rain water directly hitting the ‘gardens'. If you have a small space of just 10x10ft, that is enough to keep over 50 ‘gardens' of mushrooms. With each garden giving you at least sh3,000 a week, that is over sh150,000 a week from just this small space.

How to make a garden

You need cotton husks to start the process of making ‘gardens'.

A bag of 40kg costs sh20, 000. These can be ordered from cotton ginneries scattered in areas like Lira and parts of Teso.

You need to soak the cotton in water for about an hour, then you drain it to a level of just being moist before packing it into polythene bags so that you boil the bags all together and kill the jams that could be on them. It is necessary to soak and cook up to the highest temperature, in order to kill germs.

Pack the cotton husks into polythene bags before cooking it.

After packing, place it well into a metallic A drum. But put sticks at the bottom, to prevent water from logging into your cotton because it affects the quality of that cotton, the ‘garden' and harvest, as well.

It is advisable to cook in the evening and let it cool down slowly, throughout the night, before opening it in the morning.

Whenever you are going to touch the ‘gardens,' you have to wash your hands with water mixed with a disinfectant, to ensure that all the germs are killed.

Compiled by Joshua Kato (editor, Harvest Money) and Abel Kiddu (mushroom grower and trainer at the Harvest Money Expo)