Mushroom Grow Log

Growing legally in The Bahamas due to the unregulated nature of psilocybin in The Bahamas. For educational purposes only.

Update: 01/21/23 - Happy to announce that after a couple of failed grow attempts I’ve managed to get a few flushes under my belt. I’ve saved spore prints for future grows and now just working on perfecting my growing technique. I’ve manage to stave off contamination which was my problem in the first grows but have yet to get a nice even canopy of mushrooms like I’ve seen in time lapse videos from other growers. Still working on it but glad that the current grow method that I’m using is simple and pretty “set it and forget it”.

Grow Attempt 1

First Flush Inoculation Date: 7/12/22
Strain: Albino A+
Where Spores Obtained: Sporeworks
Growing Method Used: PF Tek

Notes:
8/11/22 - One month in and still 3 jars show no signs of inoculation. My only idea is that I used two large pots during the sterilizing process - each pot held 3 of the 6 jars. Perhaps the 3 that haven’t grown were all from one pot?

At least no mold!! 🙌🏽

Next time I will make better note of which pot each jar is in - or perhaps invest in a pressure cooker.

Planning on waiting another month before birthing, so there’s still time to see some action. Patience.

🍄 Interested in growing your first flush? Click here.

8/21/22 - There was good news followed by immediate bad news.

A 4th jar started showing signs of inoculation a few days after my last entry. And then the next day green.

I immediately removed the 4th jar and the other two dud jars from my grow bucket.

In true Myer-Briggs INTP-fashion, I decided not to dump the jars like the entire internet advised and separated them from the healthier 3 jars for further study for a few days.🤓

These are my children… I want to see them fight to the death!

🔊 Sound on!

Alright, enough of that. It’s time to give these 3 contaminated jars to the earth!

I took the unopened jars into the backyard and decided on a shady spot. It’s actually quite magical and close to my bee hives.

Note: Don’t ever open the contaminated jars inside because you risk contaminating your entire living/growing area.

This was a perfect Sunday morning mini activity - didn’t take more than 10 minutes, but it was time well spent in fellowship with mother nature.

I gave the cakes a good douse of water and will continue to monitor. Hopefully, mother nature will do her thing with these three.

Update: I’m pretty sure my dogs ate the BRF cakes. 😑 Savages.

8/27/22 - Have decided on shoebox method for fruiting - being down to two jars seems silly to build a large monotub setup. Read that the shoebox method is more “set it and forget it” - no drilling, no misting - might as well give it a try!

9/4/22 - And then there was 1 and a 1/2. Noticed an ugly spot of blue-green mold on the jar that had been doing second best. Definitely will sanitize better in the future. I was really hoping broke boy tek and good vibes would be enough, but no.

Was too attached to toss the jar over a spot. I scooped the mold out first then the remaining vermiculite/mycelium mixture. Sprayed it down with a little hydrogen peroxide. I dunked it in water overnight to rehydrate before rolling it in a new layer of vermiculite and placing the pieces in the mason jar that was nearby.

Didn’t even put the perlite in, don’t know why. Must circle back and do that. But, even without it, the jar has gathered quite a bit of condensation since yesterday. So that’s pretty cool.

The final jar is just about fully inoculated. I’ll prob birth this weekend. And it’s the Harvest Moon, too!

9/10/22 - Last man standing - the only cake to fully inoculate. Took two months to get to this, not the two weeks I was led to believe.

It slid easily out of its jar after a few whacks on the bottom and I let it soak in water overnight to hydrate. Then it was time to scrape it, roll it and set up shop! All before morning coffee. 🧟‍♀️

This has been such a fun project, even though it bombed. lol

I’m gonna keep at it. Excited to try the 5-gallon bucket grow method in the future, try casing mushrooms instead of cakes, and also in time experiment with different substrates such as coffee grounds and compare grow notes. 🤓

10/08/22 - Saw some white growth a few days after creating my mini shoebox but nope, not a single pin.

I didn’t take my own (and the internet at large’s advice) and kept fucking with shit even though the whole point of the shoebox method was suppose to be to “set it and forget it”. So yea… misting, checking to see if the perlite was still moist. Just all the things.

Grow Attempt 2

Strain: Treasure Coast
Inoculation Date: 8/27/22
Where Spores Obtained: Sporeworks
Growing Method Used: PF Tek / Shoebox tek

Originally had planned on growing one strain at a time but didn’t anticipate this slow of growth. Also summer’s ending and the school routine is starting back up. I figure life’s only gonna get more hectic leading up to the holidays, now’s as good a time as any to ‘noc these jars up!

Tweaks in method since last grow:
Used a pressure cooker

Payed more attention to sanitizing and wiping everything with alcohol

Took a shower and washed my hair right before

Paying more attention to heat this time around - it’s over 85 degrees here in the day still - so the heat probably slowed the growth of mycelium while being a better growing environment for contaminants. Hoping that since Treasure Coast thrives naturally in parts of FL, the similar climate here in The Bahamas will produce nice results, too. Because it is hotttt.

9/10/22 - I also wonder if my lack of success during my first grow had to do with my vermiculite was so finely ground. All the popular videos show a courser, lighter colored vermiculite but this is all I could find. Maybe for grow number three I’ll really double down on looking for the courser kind - or see if I can add something to the vermiculite to loosen it up - i hear things about oyster shells or eggs shells. Perhaps this will give more aeration and even space for the mycelium to form and work its way through the substrate.

10/08/22 - One jar of Treasure Coast almost 100% inoculated. The best looking inoculation to date almost a completely solid, very white layer of mycelium along the perimeter of the glass jar. The other 3 jars all got contaminated over the last few weeks. Hoping to have the energy to birth her next weekend.

10/29/22 - Just finished birthing. The cake didn’t slide right out of the jar so I tapped it on a bike tire - a little too vehemently and ended up cracking it. But this got us a nice view of inside the cake, and we can see solid white mycelium inside. I now have the cake soaking in a Tupperware of filtered water to rehydrate and will set up the shoe box tek sometime tomorrow. ✌️

10/30/22 - Still doing the most. One day I will just follow the tek… but not today.

Had been loving the idea of using coffee grounds for months but said I’d wait til I had a few successful PF tek grows under my belt.
Decided not to wait. Life is too short, right?

Pics that follow are using fresh (as in same day) brewed coffee grounds and paper. Toyed with the idea of using shredded used paper like from old phonebooks and stuff but worried about the paper’s ink.

Edited 12/11/22 - Bwahahahaa. the pics that follow are comically bad. I’m still going to try different grow mediums in the future, but think if I simply kept my cake intact and used perlite, could have saved grow attempt 2 from failing. Good things happen in Grow Attempt 3, so keep reading!

11/04/22 - 6 days later

Grow Attempt 3

Strain: GOLDEN TEACHER
Inoculation Date: 11/06/22
Where Spores Obtained: Sporeworks
Growing Method Used: PF Tek / shoebox tek

Alotta tweaks in method since last grow:

Since contamination has been a continuous issue during the last two grow attempts I really went in on cleaning this go round.

Cleaned everything and spray misted with rubbing alcohol

Instead of only using an inch of vermiculite as the barrier layer during inoculation, I was super cautious and gave myself a way wider “wall” between my BRF/vermiculite/spore juice layer.

And ended up with shorter cakes, which I affectionately refer to as “shortie cakes”.

My pressure cooker can only hold 4 jars at a time and I had no energy wait and go a second round in the cooker or bother sterilizing the other two in a pot - so i went with 4 jars only instead of the 6 this time.

Essentially, I made shorter cakes and used the whole standard sized 10ml syringe for the project. So each shortie cake got a whopping 2.5ml of spore solution. I think this ended up being a good idea - the spores had less surface area to work with and just got to chewing through the center of the jar.

Went back to using perlite in my shoebox

Instead of using foil in my grow chamber I cut the bottom off of a disposable baking pan and used that instead - way more sturdy!

Got a better spray bottle for fine misting the cakes once in their shoebox

Tried to leave it TF alone. Opened briefly in the morning and evening for air flow exchange. Fanning on occasion.

🍄 Interested in growing your first flush? Click here.

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