Anyone growing culinary mushrooms?

Hey everyone.

Does anyone grow culinary mushrooms? I say culinary as edible would still include magic mushrooms to me.
I mean you do eat them, right?

It is an interesting hobby.
I just started and was wondering if anyone would like to trade tips, tricks and maybe spore prints and/or spore syringes.
I also just started reading Paul Stamet's book on mushroom growing.

I only have a few spore varieties, but would gladly share them.

a reply to: abago71

We inoculated some big logs with white mushrooms and brown mushrooms a few years ago. We haven't inoculated them since and we get quite a few mushrooms from them, but randomly.

Such a fun experiment.

a reply to: abago71

I did grow some shiitake on logs that was very satisfying... Once I started a Cubensis grow, the process wasn't as rewarding, so I didn't dive in deeper.

I grow corn

a reply to: abago71
I bought a kit years ago to grow some mushrooms.
They were absolutely magic.

a reply to: Atsbhct

We just cut several trees in my backyard and plan to use some of the logs in a similar fashion.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

We think a magical variety is growing organically around our kids sandbox. 👀 They're country kids and know better than to eat random mushrooms, so we don't do much about it, but I wish I was confident enough to figure out if they were or weren't. They're very common in the area.

a reply to: Terpene

My neighbor is growing shiitake on logs. I have shiitake spores but haven't started them yet.
My son grows culinary and cubensis.
I have never tried cubensis, but I am interested in the current trend towards using them for
mental heath benefits.

I have never had luck growing corn.

a reply to: abago71

You're going to love it. What varieties are you going to try? We always said we'd do more, but we have short attention spans, lol.

a reply to: Atsbhct

Right now I have pink oyster, blue oyster, shiitake and portobello. My son is bringing me more.
Hopefully, I will have Lion's mane, puffball and chicken of the woods soon.

I currently have reishi, ringless honey, honey and a few others growing in my yard.
I had morels at my old house. I plan to get some going soon here.

I have been mushroom hunting for a few years now and really enjoy it. It get's me outside.
I am limited due to my health and physical abilities so growing kinda makes up for that.

a reply to: abago71

Have grown lions mane, incredible creatures, when you eat them, you can feel it fixing up your brains, bye bye errors and neurotic problems.

Mind blowing when combined with other fungi.

Well, you can eat them, but best to be in a solid state of mind and a safe environment first. My oak woods grow some amazing things.

a reply to: abago71

Well I have grown mushrooms on a pretty large scale...we just wont talk about the variety. If you ever have any questions or need some help feel free too reach out. It was a lot of fun to watch them pop up. They grow exponentially so every time you look at them it seems they are bigger.

I've grown edible fungi before. Was fun. Pretty much got some spores and followed the renown PFTek.

Sterility is key. Basically needed some 1/2 pint mason jars. Sterilized the jars and substrate in Instapot. As sterilely as possible, innoculated the substrate with the spores. Then waited. And waited. And waited. You will learn patience or you will likely fail.

Took weeks for the mycelium to completely invade the substrate. I didn't have any infected jars. Once fully filled with mycelium, I birthed pucks, bathed them gently and set them in the incubator to get multiple mistings daily. Eventually they fruited.

Let me tell you they fruited and fruited and fruited. Each puck had a solid 2.5 flushes before playing out. So much fruit. The spent pucks, you can shallow bury them somewhere and very likely they will fruit spontaneously with no further human input.

Very enjoyable experience going from spore syringe to edible fungi.

Most importantly is sterility in the beginning. Once the mycelium become the dominant living material, they will pretty much outcompete anything else in the incubator (a simple plastic tote with holes drilled in it and some perlite lining the bottom to keep humidity high).

Depending on what you are growing, the PFTek is so the way to go.