Whether you’re already an enthusiast who revels in the excitement of watching your mushrooms grow, or if you just want to learn how to grow your own silly shrooms, then look no further! Growing magic mushrooms doesn’t have to be terribly hard, but the more care and effort you put into it, the happier they’ll be – and happy mushrooms means strong mushrooms.
There are some different choices that you’ll get to make when deciding how you’re going to grow your mushrooms. Of course, you’ll have to pick the type that you want. But you’ll also be able to pick and choose the way that you grow them, including how you make your grow box. Of course, you can also choose to get a grow kit.
In this article, we’ll help you decide for yourself what kind of mushrooms to grow and how you’ll do it.
A Bit About Mushrooms
Mushrooms, as a family, are some of the most important and oldest organisms on the planet. The mycelium network, which contains the majority of the whole organism, actually resides beneath the soil. Mycelium is a hugely important component of just about any ecosystem.
Actually, mushrooms are so old and benevolent that they helped to oxygenate our atmosphere. They would consume phosphorous, an element found in rocks, and then transport it to plants so that they might have enough nutrition to photosynthesize, thrive, and then provide breathable oxygen.
It’s interesting that the mycelium network is used by multiple organisms for communication because when you look at it as a whole, a mycelium network looks quite similar to a brain cell (interesting, too, that mushrooms have such a strong affinity for the brain; they can help to increase memory and recall by increasing the rate at which your synapses fire.
Getting Mushrooms & Mushroom Growing Supplies
Mushrooms can be purchased in different places. If you’re in Amsterdam, for example, you can waltz right into a store or cafe and purchase some. Other countries where they are may allow for their purchase in storefronts.
Unfortunately, magic mushrooms are hard to find in some countries and may have to be purchased on the street. Even though it’s pretty hard to buy fake mushrooms it can still provide clarity of mind to grow your own mushrooms. Then you know exactly what you’re growing and, after chomping a few, can get a reasonable understanding of how potent they are.
Doing this means that you need to get the right gear to start growing mushrooms. Many headshops offer premade grow kits that include a medium in which to grow the shrooms as well as some spores and a grow bag or box.
If you don’t want to buy all of these things together and want to choose specific sizes, brands, or makes, then you can do that. It might take a bit longer, but you shouldn’t have too much trouble.
Whatever the case is, your priority should involve getting your equipment from a reputable source. Depending on where you live this can be a challenge, especially if you’re buying from a person rather than a website or a storefront. There shouldn’t be any issues purchasing spores as these don’t contain any psilocybin.
Guide to Growing Magic Mushrooms
If you’ve grown mushrooms of any type before then you’re already familiar with the process of growing mushrooms. The main difference between growing magic mushrooms and something like oyster mushrooms is the fact that they’re magical and might sprout wings and fly off.
That should be easily avoided with caution and routine checks to ensure that your mushrooms are growing healthy.
The first thing you should do prior to growing your mushrooms is to make sure that it’s legal in your country. In some places, it’s not, and in others growing mushrooms occupies a bit of a legal grey area.
Whatever the case, be absolutely certain that you know the rules about selling mushrooms, or even giving them away before you think about doing that.
Mushroom Growing Conditions – Do They Live Near You?
To grow mushrooms you just need to emulate the conditions that they grow in naturally. Although before doing that you might want to double-check to see if there are any species that grow naturally in your local area.
- Liberty caps are highly potent and like to grow in grassy fields near cow patties. They grow in many places in North America and Europe and tend to emerge late in the season, before the first frost.
- Cyanescens mushrooms are delicious and extremely potent. They like to grow in alder mulch throughout moderate climates and can be found even after the first frost.
- Cubensis mushrooms like to grow in tropical climates. Because they prefer heat they’re easy to grow at home and they’re generally the kind that people prefer to grow for the first time.
If none of these mushrooms grow near you, or if you just want to grow enough so that you can stock up and have your own supply, then read on. All you’ll need is a couple of pieces of gear.
Mushroom Growing Gear Guide
You don’t need that many things to grow mushrooms, and most of them aren’t very difficult to find. You may have some trouble getting a spore syringe, though. While they’re easily found online, you need to make sure that you’re getting a top-notch spore syringe.
Most grow kits will also include a spore syringe or, if they don’t, the supplier will usually have them on offer.
You want to ensure that your spore syringe isn’t contaminated with other spores and that it’s labeled correctly. Unfortunately, the only way to really do this is to grow them and find out.
Other than that, you’ll need your substrate and your grow bag. Your substrate is the medium in which your mushrooms will be growing; the grow bag is a piece of plastic that you keep overtop your mushrooms so that the air can remain humid while the mushrooms still receive light.
If you’re lucky, your grow kit will come with a pre-established mycelium. This will save you a ton of growth time.
Making Your Own Shroom Kit
If you want to make your own gear for growing mushrooms it’ll take a bit longer, but you’ll learn way more and have much more control over your yield. Here’s what you’ll need.
Substrate Ingredients:
- ⅔ cup vermiculite per jar + extra
- ¼ cup drinking water per jar
- ¼ cup organic brown rice flour per jar
Gear:
- 12 shoulderless ½ pint jars
- Hammer and small nail
- Mixing bowl
- Strainer
- Heavy-duty tin foil
- Large pot with a tight-fitting lid
- Small towel
- Micropore tape
- 50–115L clear plastic storage box
- Drill with ¼-inch bit
- Perlite
- Spray bottle
Sanitation Equipment
- Rubbing alcohol
- Butane/propane torch lighter
- Surface disinfectant
- Air sanitizer
- Sterilized latex gloves (optional)
- Surgical mask (optional)
- Still air or glove box (optional)
And lastly, don’t forget your spore syringe. These can be purchased from various sources.
If you’re new to growing mushrooms then you’ll probably want to start with one of the easier strains. Cubensis are usually good options for beginners, B+ and Golden Teacher are two of the most popular strains.
If you’ve already got some experience growing mushrooms then you might want to take up some of the more potent strains. Penis Envy are another strain of cubensis that are a heck of a lot more potent, but they require more specific growing conditons.
Once you’ve got everything put together you can begin the process of actually growing your mushrooms.
1. Get Ready
First, you’ve got to get ready.
Start by preparing your jars. Take your hammer and a nail, sanitize both of them, and use them to jab four holes through the lids of your jars. Make sure that the holes are spaced an even distance apart.
Get your substrate ready, as well. Combine your vermiculite and water in a bowl until the water is absorbed, then strain it to remove the excess. Next, add enough brown rice flour for all of your jars (3 cups if you’ve followed the ingredient list properly) and combine.
Next, fill your jars up with the substrate. They should each be filled enough to leave only about half an inch of space between the substrate and the rim. This part should be sterilized. Then, top them off with a small layer of dry vermiculite to keep the jars protected against anything that might contaminate it.
To keep things safe, you want to steam sterilize your jars. Make sure the lids are on tight and cover them with tinfoil, making sure it’s held tight enough to create a moisture barrier that would prevent water from getting into the holes you’ve made.
Line the bottom of a pot with your towel, line the jars up on top of it (making sure none come into contact with the bottom of the pot itself) and then fill the pot up with enough water to cover half of the jars. Gently boil the water and make sure the jars don’t fall over before putting on the lid. Let the jars steam for an hour and a half, refilling the pot if it runs out of water. Alternatively you can use a pressure cooker for this step, set at 60 PSI. This is a huge time saver as you’ll only need to use it for 15 minutes.
2. Inoculate
As always, start with sanitizing everything. If you need to set up your spore syringe, do so, making sure not to contaminate everything. Gloves are recommended, as is disinfecting the air.
You can sterilize a syringe by heating up the needle (and only the needle) with a lighter. Don’t let it touch anything unsanitized while it cools down. This shouldn’t take long, but since you can’t touch the needle to find out (for the risk of disinfecting it) make sure you give it a minute.
Next, start inoculating your jars. Pull back the plunger on your syringe a bit first and give it a shake. This distributes the spores.
Simply remove the foil, insert the syringe as far as possible into one of the holes, and then, holding the needle tip against the side of the jar, push down the plunger just enough to inject slightly less than 1/4cc of the spores (assuming you’re using a 10cc syringe with the 12 jars. Otherwise you’ll have to calculate the dosage yourself.)
Do this for all the holes, sanitizing the needle each time, and then cover the holes with micropore tape. Inoculate all the jars the same way.
3. Colonize
Now it’s time to be patient. Put your inoculated jars somewhere that they won’t be knocked over or exposed to sunlight. Keep them at room temperature, between 70 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
After a week or two, you should notice the mycelium emerging. It’ll look fluffy and white. If you notice anything weird or discolored growing in your jars they’re probably contaminated and should be removed carefully. Don’t take off the lids, instead toss them out in such a way that they won’t get broken (like by wrapping them in bubble wrap or cloth).
It takes about a month for your jars to get fully colonized and ready to move to a grow chamber.
4. Get Ready to Grow
Drill quarter-inch holes on all sides of your plastic tote container, keeping them about two inches apart. Use a sharp drill bit or place a wood block on the opposite side of your drilling target to prevent the tote from cracking.
Raise the box so that air can flow freely beneath. This can be done by setting it atop four cinder blocks, one placed under each corner.
Next, prepare your perlite by setting it in your strainer and then wash it with cold water. When it stops dripping you can spread it evenly on the bottom of your plastic bin. Keep doing this until you’ve got 4-5 inches of the stuff coating the base of the bin.
5. Grow!
Being cautious, remove the lids of your substrate jars and take the dry vermiculite off the top. The inoculated substrates are called cakes. You can remove them by turning each jar upside down onto a sanitized counter – they should remain in one piece.
Now it’s time to rehydrate them. First, give them a rinseto get rid of any extra vermiculite, then place them in a flat-bottomed pot or container with enough lukewarm water to just barely submerge them completely. You’ll probably want to keep them weighted down with another flat object.
After 24 hours, you can carefully remove them and set them on a sanitized surface. Fill your bowl with dry vermiculite and roll the cakes around in it to thoroughly coat them. Then get ready to transfer them.
Make sure you keep the humidity levels high. You should mist your growing chamber at least four times daily while at the same time making sure that you don’t overwater them.
Fanning helps to regulate the airflow which mushrooms crave. You should do this at least 4 times daily.
6. Harvest & Store
When harvesting, cut them close to the cake. Mushrooms can and should be harvested before they’re at the end of their growth cycle. They reach maximum potency right before the veil breaks.
There are plenty of methods for drying them that we don’t have space to detail in this article. For all intents and purposes, a dehydrator works great.
Many people choose to air-dry them – just make sure it’s dry and sunny out. This can take up to 7 days and even then the mushrooms might retain some moisture. Only if they’re crisp and easily snapped can you be sure that they’re fully dry.
Store them in a cool, dark area away from direct sun and enjoy as needed!
Conclusion
Growing magic mushrooms doesn’t have to be hard. Using a grow kit makes it child’s play, but even making your own substrate is quite simple. All you need to do is get some spores and inject them into their favorite growing medium, then keep them moist until they’re ready to grow into beautiful mushrooms.
Hopefully, we’ve inspired you to start growing your own mushrooms right away. Just remember, above all else, to stay sanitary!
Written by Nigel Ford, herbalist & author
