As you get into the swing of summer, you might be enjoying the great outdoors with activities like swimming or hiking. Or maybe with the constant heatwaves, you might want to do something more relaxing like gardening. This year, you can try growing something more unconventional—mushrooms! Did you know that you can grow your own edible mushrooms from scratch?

In How to Grow Mushrooms from Scratch, Magdalena and Herbert Wurth share tips and strategies on how to cultivate mushrooms in your own backyard. But even if you don’t have a backyard, mushrooms will thrive in almost any space from your cellar to the courtyard, on your patio to the balcony, or even in the kitchen. The key is to pick the right growing medium for your mushroom—a log, a bale of hay, or a simple pot of dirt—and give it a little shade.

For those of us without the spacious yard, here are some tips for growing mushrooms in your basement or your living room with mushroom kits (containers with pre-inoculated and colonized growing medium):

· Air should not be too dry
· Keep moist with a spray bottle (twice per day is usually sufficient to maintain optimal moisture levels)
· The smaller the mushrooms, the higher the humidity in the air they will need
· Kits need access to fresh air and sufficient light
· Do not allow the kit to become waterlogged
· Store the kit within the optimal temperature range for the mushroom being cultivated

Tip: Should mold appear, scratch it away and treat affected sites with vinegar or salt (dab with paper towel, but only where mold appeared).