Mushroom growing for a beginner?

[Nimravid]

I'd like to grow some psylocibin mushrooms, but all the instructionals I've found look pretty involved.

So my question is, what is the bare minimum one would have to do to get some mushrooms growing, even if it's not as high a yield as the 'professional' techniques?

Could I put some potting soil in an aquarium, spread some spores around, keep it watered and expect mushrooms?

 

[Solipsis]

No, mushrooms don't grow on basic soil like plants... they grow on substrate they like, food for them - rice flour is used, but also grain berries like rye - seeds and the like also work. They also need a lot of water.

Problem is: not only the mushrooms you want like soggy wet rye, other fungus species and bacteria also love it. That's why you need to sterilize the whole thing before you add the mushroom spores. Skipping that will just lead to having everything contaminated with nasty micro organisms.

You need to have the substrate sterile (apart from adding those spores) at least as long as the colonization, which is when the spores grow throughout the food while eating it. After that you can 'expose' it, because the fungus will be more resilient and can protect itself from contamination - up to a point, it can still get 'sick'.

Professional would be using a flowhood and stuff, a shroom lab basically. The bare minimum would be doing a PF tek style grow, with jars filled with substrate, sterilized... making cakes (chunks of mycelium from the jars that will grow the mushrooms), growing them in a shotgun tub filled with perlite for the humidity.

Yes it's kinda involved in that you need to pay attention, arrange a number of materials, and put in some time. But it's not rocket science. Not as easy as growing plants like you are asking about though, sorry.

 

[Nimravid]

Thanks for the info. Guess I won't be growing mushrooms soon, but I'll add it to my list of long term projects.

 

[burn out]

Its really not that involved, if you can bake a cake and can green beans you can grow mushrooms. Both canning and mushroom growing require sterilazation. Aside from that its just a matter of mixing a couple ingredients together and then making a suitable fruiting chamber.

 

[koalabear135]

they make little kits, like little packs of dirt, (very fungus promoting dirt) its got a little hood and keeps it all moist, even has direction. buy one for like ghost mushrooms or different things, and just put the other spores in it instead. its pretty fool proof. has worked for me.

 

[Solipsis]

I've grown them myself and had mixed results but mostly success - and used a kit and failed. They are expensive... but yeah if you read up on some ways to minimize contamination it is a good bet and requires doing hardly anything at all.
Problem is, if it's mycelium kit you buy - the mycelium is illegal in many places.

 

[The Shadow Self]

It's actually easy once you have a successful grow, and no...it's doesn't have to be as complicated as is indicated in many more advanced teks. You can get spores, knock up grow bags, build a fruiting chamber in which you can maintain high humidity, break up the bag contents within the chamber using vermiculite, and once colonized, get them to pin and grow nice personal quantities of shrooms. It's not as hard as you think.

 

[Bearlove]

I've usually had great results from the kits - used the small tubs and the bigger grow bags. The only thing that I needed not supplied in the kit (or sent later) was clean water.

Wet the substrate (using a spray mister bottle and bottled water), inject the spores, keep somewhere warm, few days and they will start to grow.

 

[.:Holy::Toast:.]

Mushroom growing is only really involved for the initial steps, once you get them growing it just involves maintaining optimal humidity conditions and whatnot.
Plus after, you can take spores from your best looking specimens and end up getting some really potent mushrooms.
The strongest mush I've done was from a homegrow, the only time that an eighth of cubes got my FUCKED, honestly the highest I've been on mush and I've done up to 9 grams at a time before

 

[Cream Gravy?]

^Indeed, my homegrowns were the strongest I've had as well. I grew once a few years back. Followed a PF Tek guide to the letter and ended up getting about an ounce or two. It was quite simple to do, but required vigilant sanitation in all steps until fruiting.