Expanding my gardening skills
I have been looking into all of the amazing health benefits of mushrooms and I feel that it is important to add them into my normal diet. So many different mushroom types have so many medicinal benefits to them.
I bought this mushroom growing kit from Walmart last week and got it ready. Everything needed is included in the kit and when you want to start growing your mushrooms. To begin the growing process, you just cut an X in the substrate bag and soak it in water for 6-10 hours.
After it soaks, then you just put it back in the box and set it in indirect lighting. They say that a windowsill works best, but I set mine in my grow room in an area where it can get some light from the lights in my tent.
After a couple days of spraying mist on the box a few times a day, it begins to sprout these little caps. After about 10 days, the mushrooms will be ready for harvest.
I took these pictures yesterday and their caps have already pretty much doubled in size by this morning.
One of the main reasons that I got this kit was just to see how much work it would be to grow mushrooms. They are a lot easier than I thought they would be. This could be just because it was a pretty much fool proof kit that I used for the oyster mushrooms.
Now to the fun mushrooms. I bought some Psilocybe cubensis mushroom spores a few weeks ago and I injected the spores into a grain bag. Growing mushrooms is a lot different than growing any other type of plant. It is a lot like being a scientist because it is highly recommended to wear gloves and sterilize everything that you work with.
There are many different ways you can grow the mycelium in your grain bags. I have seen people using rice bags like the Uncle Ben's rice bags you can get from a grocery store. These are ideal because the inside of the bags are sterile, so some people just cut the corner of the bag and then shoot the spores inside the bag and tape it off. I prefer these sterilized grain bags from Northspore because they have a self sealing injection port and they are a high quality bag.
It usually takes about 3-4 weeks for the mycelium to form before you can mix it in with the substrate. I ordered a few bags of substrate from Northspore as well. It is a sterile premium mixture containing horse manure and other growing medium for mushrooms.
Everything I have read about the stuff that Northspore makes is that it is high quality and helps to guarantee a successful grow. Since this is going to be my first actual mushroom grow, I wanted to make sure I was doing things as best as I could.
This image was taken right before I injected the spores into the bag, but over the last couple weeks, the mycelium has started to form. It is like little clumps of white fur inside the bag. The mycelium is essentially the little seedlings and once the bag is full of mycelium it is ready.
Once the mycelium is ready, I have prepared a place to grow everything and I am hoping that it works like it is supposed to. It is a bit nerve wracking trying to figure out a whole new way to grow things and there is so much that can go wrong with growing mushrooms and any contaminates can ruin the whole thing. It is really inexpensive to grow these, but it does take quite a long time to get it all ready. Once the mycelium is moved into the substrate, it should only take about a week or two until the shrooms are ready to harvest.
I am waiting on another shipment from Northspore so I can get another grain bag inoculated with spores. Just like with cannabis, the different strains of psychedelic mushrooms produce different effects as well.
I can't wait to see if all of this work is going to pay off and I can have my own stash of mushrooms to microdose with. It has been awesome to be able to take my health back from the many years of conventional medicine from the VA. Today is day 5 without any of my medication and the withdrawals have gotten a lot less severe over time. I had to lower my dose and then increase the time between doses, and it has been a process that has taken me almost two months to get to where I am now.
Thanks for taking the time to read over my post and ramblings. I wasn't sure where this post was going to go when I started it, but if you have made it this far, you are awesome and I appreciate you stopping by.