So after researching and procrastinated for years, I bought some mushrooms spores and 2 growpots from Cylocybe.com , gourmet and medicinal mushrooms are actually big money if you can learn to grow them yourself. There is, allegedly, a bit of an underground market for mushrooms – people steal mushrooms off private land and sell them direct to restaurants.

The company is 100% legit and the customer service is excellent.

The only thing I would say, is they could really do with some images, or a video on their guides pages.

The guides are pretty long and a bit confusing. Images with annotations, or ideally a video would help a lot.

I’ve only just inoculated my grow-pot from cylocybe.com so I can’t say how well its turned out. Wish me luck anyway, I’ll update this post as soon as I have an update!

• 11 days later – no sign of the myecelium – think I may have killed it putting it in the window. Getting conflicting advice as to whether it should be in a dark cupboard, or in indirect sunlight.
• 20 days later – some myecelium is growing! Not sure what to do next, best find out

Ace tho!

4 weeks later and the pot is nearly ready for the next stage…

A Guide to Growing Mushrooms from Spores

Equipment

Grow-pot kit from cylocybe.com which contains

• Spores
• Syringe
• Grow pot with black injection ports
• Gloves, facemask, alcohol wipes

1. Find a clean area to inject the spores – not the bathroom or kitchen due to mould growth

2. Clean your hands, face etc and if you have them, put on rubber gloves and a face mask

3. Attach the ‘pin’ (sharp bit) to the syringe

4. Push air out of syringe, then insert the pin of syringe into the spores vial/bottle, and pull the back-end to suck out the spores

5. Rub the port with the alcohol wipe and inject half of the spores into the pot’s substrate

6. clean the other black, injection port and injection the second half of the spores

There’s some confusion over where to place the pot at this point.

I placed my in the window for 3 days and then in a cupboard for 10 days, and it appears to have grown fine.

It will take 3-5 weeks for the grow-pot to be consumed by the mycelium

Stage 2 – Fruiting the Mycelium to Mushrooms

2.1 – dunk & roll the mycelium

Equipment

• Container to fill with water
• Vermiculite (the brown / Yellow-ish package – see image below)
• Large bowl

Dunk

1. Clean an area near your sink
2. Fill a container with water (to put the pot(s) in)
3. Take off the grow-pot lid and tap it’s bottom until it comes out, into the container
4. Keep them submerged for 24 hours and covered e.g. with the lid if it’s tupperware

Roll

1. Take the vermiculite and bowl – enter the vermiculite into the bowl
2. Take the cakes (growpot contents) out of the container and rinse under water
3. cover the entire cake, with a coating of vermiculite

2.2 – Fruiting in the Bag

Grow the little blighters in the bag:

Equipment needed:

• Perlite
• Plastic bag with air filter stripe (shown above)
• Sieve
• Foil
• Misting bottle with water

Step 1  – Rinse the perlite with cold water, you’ll probably need a sieve.

Shake off any excess water but make sure it is still damp

Step 2 – add the perlite to the bottom of the bag

Step 3 – add foil on top of the perlite

Step 4 – Add the mushroom-mycelium-cake on top of the foil. Do NOT touch the perlite

Step 5 – Fold over the top of the bag.

Step 6 – leave for 12 hours before misting the mushroom-cake. Mist 3 to 6 times a day after the first 12 hours

Just the one mushroom grew in the end – but it was a very strong cordyceps mushroom!

Next time I’m making a fruiting chamber, instead of using the bags provided. I’ve bought a reptile box which should do the trick

The site has a range of gourmet mushrooms that you can try and grow

I’ve since replaced the fruiting bag, used in the last stage of growing, with a reptile box, but with all but 2 of the air ports duct taped shut