I've never grown mushrooms before, but I bought a Herbal Since Ling mushroom kit 6 weeks ago. It consist of a plastic miniature greenhouse and a substrate block. The substrate block was covered all over in fluffy white mycelium and the plastic bag it was packed in had tiny drops of condensation, but since there was no date printed on the package, I don't know how old it actually was. When I unpacked it, it had already clusteres of pinheads in several places.
During the next week or two, I watched 5 miniature mushrooms grow, but then they stopped. I watered the substrate block with cold water at least twice a day and more pinheads grew all over the place, but still not a single full-grown mushroom.
I did quite some reading on mushroom growing and binged some Youtube, where I learned that a too high CO2 concentration could stunt the growth. So I cut 2 tiny holes into the bottom corners of the plastic greenhouse to allow CO2 to flow out (and simplify the watering process by enabling drainage).
This is the current state. I marked the mini mushrooms that stopped growing in red.
I don't know why this substrate block, that looked so perfect when I bought it, wouldn't grow even a single mushroom. Do I have to remove the existing pinheads to stimulate new growth? Should I change the environment? Put it into a darker or lighter place? Could the substrate be too old and depleted? How do I get this substrate block to finally fruit?
