There's also a "Chicken of the Forest" which is said to taste like chicken meat. I wanna try that, Lion's Mane, Portabello's, and Shitake's.
What are regular mushrooms called? My mom said button mushrooms or something...
You can get "kits" for all of these from fungi perfecti - they are just bags of spawn innoculated with instructions and they are a bit pricey for you (I know you don't have a lot of money) but it will get you into the stream and you can clone almost all mushrooms.
If you are getting interested in this stuff, there is one mushroom that you want to know about - Coprinus Comatus or shaggy mane. You cannot fuck this one up - there is no mushroom in north America (I don't know about the other regions) that looks or acts like this mushroom and it grows pretty much everywhere but the desert. Many years ago my buddies and I would insist on carrying a camp stove and butter everywhere we went during fall or spring. Eventually we would see a proud stand of manes, pull over, slice them up in butter and eat them on the spot - they are some of the most tastey mushrooms on the planet, second only to chanterelles and morels. You cannot mistake them for any other mushroom once you have seen them a few times. You have a few things to worry about but none of them are harmful -
1. They deliquiesce - in other words, they turn to slime from the bottom up when they start dispersing spores - if you don't get them early, they aren't very appetizing.
2. They tend to pick up heavy metals, pesticides and insecticides from the environment - If you see them growing by the side of busy highways you probably don't want them, or if they grow in golf courses, say, you might want to ask the grounds keeper what they use on their lawns before you eat them.
You can domesticate them and you can grow them in your present grow system - I have gotten a few to grow on grain but they don't much like it - they grow fairly well on worm castings but straw is what they really like. I have yet to get a second flush so unless you want to experiment with conditions - it is only barely worth the effort if you want to get a constant supply.
Shitakes are pretty easy to grow if you have the patience. They will grow on blocks of compressed sawdust or on logs (if you have the patience to wait).
Oyster mushrooms will reward you with 100 percent bioefficiency, if you get even close to doing it right you will get TONES of mushrooms - they grow on straw or paper waste. If you want to know a secret, I am working on a type of oyster that will grow on palm fonds. Ordinarily palm fronds take a long time to break down and they fill up the land fills here, a mushroom that would grow on them will break them down to wonderful soil, you can get paid to carry them away, and you can get a couple of dollars a lb for the mushrooms. And they taste damn good - the pink however is the least tasty (I think). You can get a strain of oyster to suit every predominant climate - there are hot weather oysters and cool oysters.
If you really want to go for the brass ring - try your hand at morels - if you can crack their life cycle and bring them into the lab you will be an instant millionare - so far one person has figured out the black morel, he was backed by investors and started Morel Mountain. His method is patented and I have tried it - and failed every time.
Or you can work on truffles - white or black and make even more money. You can buy saplings that are innoculated with truffle mycelium, plant the trees and if you are lucky they will grow