Trippin’ on a Budget – How to grow your own magic mushrooms at home with limited funds

Cultivation of psilocybin mushrooms is illegal in the US, although various studies point to their effectiveness in managing mental illness. Medicinal and edible mushrooms can be grown at home and are rewarding and fun.

Here’s a step-by-step process on how to make mushrooms for you without spending more than your monthly lunch.

Before you start, you need to get a few things. You are:

• A bag of sterilized substrate (substrate can be called mushroom soil)

• Tape with micropores

• a sterilized ryeberry grain bag

• duct tape

• Powder-free latex gloves

• A bottle of 70% isopropyl rubbing alcohol.

• Two very clean spray bottles

• Two 66 qt clear plastic Sterilite tubs

Knowing the right mushrooms to grow

This is a bit tricky, but you need to find mushroom genetics, specifically Psilocybe Cubensis “Golden Teachers”. This strain is known to be one of the straightest and highest yielding strains.

Mushrooms grow from spores into “mycelium” in Petri dishes, which are then placed in a jar of liquid, mostly water, combined with a little honey or light malt extract. The mycelium turns into a liquid culture.

The liquid culture is then injected into a bag filled with the grain, where it eventually grows into mushrooms. Also, you might want to have a few extra bags of grain as there is a high chance that 1 or 2 bags will be contaminated before the mushrooms start growing.

For this reason, it should be grown in a plastic tub. It cultivates a restricted ecosystem and protects your muscles from pollutants.

Anything you see growing in the tub as opposed to healthy white mycelium, especially patches of green, blue, or black mold, do not open it in your home. Move it outside and dispose of everything but the tub itself in your trash or compost bin

Once you have supplies you need to create a stand air box, a plastic tub with arm slots in it to create a sterile work area.

For the next step, prepare a clean room.

Before you begin, turn off your heating or air conditioning to make sure no air is blowing through your home. The smallest bathroom in your house is ideal for use, and you should thoroughly clean it from head to toe with 70% isopropyl alcohol or Lysol. Make an effort to clean every possible surface and avoid breathing in too many fumes. When exiting, use Lysol spray.

Take your sterile grain bag, spore syringe or liquid culture syringe, some alcohol, airbox and a pair of gloves and head to the clean room.

Clean your hands, wear gloves, clean with alcohol and disinfect all your supplies with alcohol, especially the still air box. Make sure all surfaces are disinfected while working. After sanitizing the outside of your grain bag, place it in the distillation air box next to your liquid culture syringe.

Clean your hands and work area again before flame sterilizing the tip of the syringe.

Disinfect the self-healing injection port, the rubber piece on the bag that allows you to inject the liquid culture without opening the bag. Half of your liquid culture should be injected into the kernels through the rubber opening.

Keep the pouch in a dark place and let it colonize (grow).

Over the next few weeks, the white mycelium will grow all over the grain. When it’s about 30% caked, work the outside of the bag with your hands and spread out the cake to help the mycelium develop faster. When it is fully settled, you need to prepare a tub for the mushrooms to grow.

Drill two 2 inch holes at the bottom of each extended side and just one hole under each handle. You can use a circular saw for this, or scissors and a lighter would do. Wipe the edges and make sure no bits of plastic are left behind. Clean the outside of the tub with rubbing alcohol and cover each hole with a piece of tape.

Prepare the clean room just like the first time. The silent airbox is not needed this time. What is needed is your settled grain bag, a substrate bag, and a knife. Put on gloves, clean with alcohol, then use the knife to open the substrate bag and dump all the decent dirt into the tub. Repeat with the colonized grain. Mix by spreading any clumps of grain with your hands to create an evenly mixed flat layer of substrate and grain. Put the lid on the tub and you’re done.

Keep it in a dark place.

The tub should be kept in a place that is around 75 to 80 degrees. After 10-14 days the tub should be surrounded by white mycelium and hopefully you will start to see little pins (baby mushrooms). If that happens, return the tub to your clean room and swap the tape for the microphone tape. This allows oxygen into the tub and stimulates fungal growth.

At this point, you should light the tub for at least a few hours a day. You could use a desk lamp for this. After a week or so, you should have ripe mushrooms ready to pick and dry. You’ll know it’s time to pick when the veil that connects the cap to the stem tears and the lid opens. Continue picking until growth stops.

bottom line

The whole mythology is very complicated. This article is the easiest and quickest way I could explain it to people who don’t know about it. There are a million different ways to do this. People have been said to grow it straight from bags of Uncle Ben’s Rice. The odds are high, and we still understand so little about mushrooms and how they work. It’s an enjoyable hobby. You can read about it and listen to an interview with Paul Stamets if you’re interested.

I hope for a future where Americans can grow these healing devices right from the comfort of their own homes without having to worry about legal ramifications.

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THE 5 BEST MUSHROOM GROW KITS FOR GROWING MUSHROOMS AT HOME!