Growing your own mushrooms is a lot of fun! I first tried this in the summer of 1996 and the results were amazing, and catastrophic at the same time! A lot has changed since 1996 and it has become a lot easier to grow a wide variety of incredibly powerful healing magic mushrooms.
In this article we will build up to a simple how-to-grow magic mushrooms guide, starting with the basics and moving through. All of the information on the internet can get quite overwhelming, so, from my position of experience I will give you a logical explanation of the quickest route to get you understanding and growing magic mushrooms.
What is a magic mushroom?
We find people calling all sorts of mushrooms that have a psychedelic component magic mushrooms. These can include fly agaric, which is potentially poisonous if consumed incorrectly. Within the family of mushrooms that contain psychedelic/mind-altering substances, we find the psilocybin/psilocin-containing mushrooms. These are the magic mushrooms we will refer to in this article – these mushrooms are relatively easy to grow in most cases, and they are non-lethal. You will struggle to kill yourself eating too many of these mushrooms – you may find yourself in a different universe for a while, and you will probably come back with a slightly altered world view, but you will be alive.
The majority of the easier-to-cultivate magic mushrooms are in the Psilocybe and related genera. The archetypal first popularized of these is Psilocybe cubensis. Every year, new Psilocybe and related species enter the world of magic mushroom growers. In addition, much like what has happened in the cannabis space, growers hybridize and mutate strains and cross species to produce more and more potent, or interesting strains.
How do magic mushrooms grow in nature?
A magic mushroom starts its life in nature as a spore – well probably two spores actually. Spores germinate when they find something nice to grow on – such as a cow patty (manure). The spores produce mycelia, that are like little white roots that grow throughout the patty – the mycelia produce enzymes and consume cellulose and other complex organic material in the manure and compost below it. If the mycelia of one spore meet the mycelia of another spore, and they are complimentary mating types, they will fuse into a mated mycelium. These are more aggressive and powerful in their growth and will rapidly use up the nutrients in the cow manure.
How do magic mushrooms fruit in nature?
When the mated strain has consumed most of the nutrients in the cow patty, it will produce mushroom fruits – the objective of a mushroom fruit is to produce spores that can then move to another place and start the cycle again.
How to grow mushrooms the hard way
The first fifty times or so that I grew mushrooms I had no help – I just figured it out. So we used rice which was precooked and then added a bit of lime to raise the pH – magic mushrooms typically grow in places with an alkaline soil, such as the gulf coast of the US and Mexico. I also used to add a bit of amino acid concentrate because I had that in the lab.
Next, we would autoclave the jars in an autoclave. An autoclave is a big fancy pressure cooker that takes the temperature of your media to about 121°C under steam pressure for about 45 minutes, ensuring that the majority of living bacteria, yeast, and fungi in the rice have been killed! If you do not sterilize this way, you end up with all sorts of horrible things growing in your growth media and you do not get mushrooms.
Previous to this, I had autoclaved and poured agar plates, and onto these, I had scraped mushroom spores in a sterile hood (lab equipment). The mushroom spores germinate, and when they grow, you can see when the strains mate, and the mushroom mycelium gets fluffy and thick. I would have taken squares of this mated mycelium and grown it up further on new petri plates, and then used some of this to innoculate the jars of rice.
The mycelium colonizes the rice and then you can fruit the mushrooms. Now you can see that this is really a bit beyond the capacity of anybody who does not have access to a laboratory and have a degree in microbiology or similar.
Mated Golden Teacher strain mushroom mycelia on a Petri plate.
How to grow mushrooms like a pro – but the easy way
Luckily the world has changed a lot since 1996 and you can now grow mushrooms like a pro that has a big lab, in the comfort of your own home.
Mushroom cultivators have made mushroom kits available that use simple technology. These kinds of helpful people do all the complicated stuff in their own laboratories. So they prepare sterilized media and they place this in a tub for you. They also prepare a “spore syringe” that is actually some mated mushroom culture growing in a little syringe of sterilized honey water (normally).
When your kit arrives, you open the spore syringe carefully and inject the contents into the tub as per the instructions on the box. The mycelia will then grow very quickly, and within 4-6 weeks normally, sometimes sooner, you will be harvesting your shrooms!!
The great thing about this method is that it is nearly foolproof, and you are pretty much guaranteed a nice crop.
There are many people that sell kits, and some of these kits can be a bit unreliable while others are really excellent. Because mushrooms have become so popular in recent years it means there are a lot of people out there with some skills. In this regard, you want to purchase a kit from a reliable supplier that sells large volumes of kits. This means that the quality control on the kits is good, and that the “spore syringes” are not in any way contaminated.
How to fruit your grow kit
When it comes to fruiting a grow kit or kits, this is a place where many people make mistakes. I believe in buying a big “tupperware” type plastic container with a removable lid. You will need to buy some micropore tape and make a hole in the lid and stick this micropore tape over it. This provides for some air exchange and keeps bugs and bacteria out.
You can then place some pearlite to a depth of 5 cm on the base of the tub. Wet the pearlite with boiled water (cool it down first). This will provide moisture to your mushroom grow kit.
When the grow kit has turned completely white, wait five days after this happens to ensure the mushrooms have really fully grown into the media. Take the tub and place it next to the above-mentioned fruiting chamber. Put gloves on your hands and wear a face mask. Wash your hands well and sterilize them with alcohol. Working quickly, remove the lid of the tub and shake the solid circular block of media out of the tub into the pearlite.
Replace the lid of the tub. Every day, as soon as mushrooms begin to appear you will need to open the lid and let fresh air into the tub, then replace the lid. This is called an air exchange. Do this three to four times a day when mushrooms start appearing. Frequent air exchange gives you healthy mushrooms.
A fruiting chamber as described. Not the holes on the side with micropore tape over them.
How to harvest your mushrooms
The best way is to gently twist the mushrooms so they come loose from the block of media. You can now dry your mushrooms if necessary by placing them in a dry dark place. Alternatively, they can be consumed.
Drying magic mushrooms.
How to fruit the block again
Following the first fruiting of mushrooms, you can rest the block for a week or two and then spray more water into the container and the mushrooms will fruit again in the second flush of mushrooms. Harvest as per the previous time and keep them aside. You may be lucky and get to fruit the block a third and even fourth time. After the fourth time, take the block and bury it in a potted plant in your house. If you are very lucky, you may end up with a few more flushes of mushrooms coming out in your potted plants!!
Where to source good grow kits
If you are looking for a reliable supplier of grow kits you can try this supplier.
