Oyster Mushrooms

I'm having a go at growing Oyster Mushrooms (Pleurotus oystreatus).  I'm going to attempt a variety of methods and see what works best.  I have bought some Golden Oyster culture.  This is the one that's worrying me to be honest.  The culture is lab made under strict conditions to prevent contamination.  Scary stuff, and easy to infect with some other kind of mould.  Our house is quite damp so......

Anyway, I've inoculated three different substrates; wood pellets, teabags and cardboard loo rolls.  Both the (used) tea bags and the cardboard have been boiled off, to eliminate contamination.  These have been sealed in clean tubs and placed in the dark.  They will stay there for a week, then I will check to see if anything is happening.

I've also taken a chunk of mycelium from an old oyster growing kit and given it fresh fodder in the way of wood pellets.  I wonder if that will work?!

My next attempt is to harvest spores from a wild oyster mushroom, which I collected today, and make my own culture.  According to Paul Stamets (Mycelium Running, my new favourite book) these mushrooms, should I succeed will be the toughest and most useful, as they are already used to all kinds of bacteria and other moulds, and should do well outside.  

Who knows if any of this will work?  We will have to wait and see.  I do hope so, as growing, and hopefully selling, my own, home grown mushrooms is part of the master self sufficiency plan!  I'll let you know how I get on!