In the dark with mushrooms

GROW YOUR OWN is the mantra of the moment.

Seeds firms are reporting huge interest in growing fruit and veg, both as a result of the credit crunch and the healthy eating movement.

But it seems there is one crop that is well worth avoiding.

Growing your own mushrooms could cost up to 22 times more than buying the same variety in a supermarket, a new report from Which? Gardening has found.

While home-grown vegetables are often tastier and cheaper than shop-bought varieties, the report found that when it comes to mushrooms, you might actually be better off sticking to the supermarket varieties.

Instead of saving you tens of pounds, it could cost you tens of pounds more to grow mushrooms from kits tested by Which?

Their Which? Gardening experts ordered eight different types of mushroom kit and each was tested by five different people. Each tester recorded how easy and enjoyable their kit was to use, as well as the weight and quality of their crop.

Using the Bakker French Mushroom kit, researchers found that a 100g crop cost would have cost £10.41 to grow. But, when bought from the supermarket, 100g of French mushrooms cost only 47p. This was also the case when the Yorkshire Mushroom Book Recycler Kit was used. A 100g pack of Oyster mushrooms can be bought for £1 in supermarket, while it would have cost £14.85 to grow the same amount — almost 15 times more expensive.

Even standard white mushrooms proved expensive and difficult to grow, with one researcher unable to produce any mushrooms. On average, it cost Which? Gardening £1.89 to produce 100g of crop using Unwin's Mushroom Growing Kit — it would have cost just 26p to buy the same amount at the supermarket.

Further to this, all the testers at Which? found the kits tricky and time-consuming to use, and many of the kits only produced small crops.

Ceri Thomas, editor of Which? Gardening, said: "Usually growing your own food means you are rewarded with tasty crops at a fraction of the cost of the supermarket. But this is definitely not the case with mushrooms.

"Many of our researchers found that growing mushrooms was a real chore and didn't produce anywhere near as many as expected. When it comes to mushrooms, I'd definitely leave the growing to the professionals!"

Which? is the leading independent consumer champion in the UK. To find out more visit www.which.co.uk