Grow Your Own Mushrooms

June 12, 2007 7:04 PM

How to Grow Your Own Mushrooms : Techniques that work for all kinds of spore-bearing fruiting bodies of fungi ...Instructional videos 1, 2, 3, 4, or skip ahead to the advanced techniques using the Laundry basket / Straw Log methods.
posted by Dave Faris (20 comments total)

Just tell me now..any of these instructions for psychedelic mushrooms?
posted by spicynuts at 7:17 PM on June 12, 2007

Techniques that work for all kinds...
posted by Dave Faris at 7:18 PM on June 12, 2007

A few years ago, my father bought me a Portabella mushroom kit for Christmas. It was a really good gift - it was cool to watch the mushrooms sprout in winter.
posted by dilettante at 7:21 PM on June 12, 2007

"A few years ago, my father bought me a Portabella mushroom kit for Christmas."

Y'know, kids today don't even know what those are.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:44 PM on June 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

Mushrooms? Or ALIENS?! I would link to a fulltext but my googlefu fails me.
posted by fuzzbean at 8:04 PM on June 12, 2007

For the curious, the first four movies are an overview of a home-grow method that is called the PF Tek [drug sites, probably not safe for work].

And there's a little typo in the link to part 3.
posted by peeedro at 8:04 PM on June 12, 2007

When I was lad, we had these strange Golden Topped mushrooms growing in the paddocks around our house....

Supposedly they weren't edible, but you could drink them in a tea. Not a nice tea, but a tea all the same.
posted by mattoxic at 8:04 PM on June 12, 2007

Is this something I'd have to read Erowid to know about?

Incidentally, my favorite mushroom is a parasite. I don't suppose they've figured out a way to grow this one at home?
posted by dreamsign at 8:27 PM on June 12, 2007

What a simple & practical way of improving the education of the youth of amerika! Who knows what career heights may be achieved?
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:40 PM on June 12, 2007

This spring I went to Le Musée du Champignon, near Saumur in the Loire Valley of France. Seeing a commercial mushroom growing operation was surprisingly interesting. I was particularly taken by the way every different kind of mushroom required a different method to grow. Worth a visit if you're in the area.
posted by Nelson at 8:41 PM on June 12, 2007

Hey UbuRoivas, I thought we had well chased you off!
posted by Demogorgon at 8:53 PM on June 12, 2007

nah, i thought i'd just go hide in a controversy-free thread that nobody would read. something about mushrooms, for example.
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:09 PM on June 12, 2007

Decent content, but could have been better edited (too much time showing repeated steps, such as drilling holes in plastic box). Suitable method for growing those special shrooms people like to talk about. Perhaps more emphasis and information on clean procedures would have been appropriate. Also, they talk about liquid material for starting the shrooms, without going in to how this is made from the clone grown on agar. Would also benefit from explanation of "spore prints", and their use. (I read about mushroom growing decades ago. Funny enough, I've never eaten the fun kind).
posted by Goofyy at 10:14 PM on June 12, 2007

God I just love the seedy (spore-y?) underbelly of the interwebs. Overgrow, oh how I miss thee.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 4:21 AM on June 13, 2007

Nice but, how does one collected the spores after buying the first batch ?
posted by elpapacito at 5:12 AM on June 13, 2007

elpapacito: There are a couple vids on there about cloning, which I believe is a bit faster than working from spores. Of course, depending on your location, you may be able to purchase commercial products for this purpose.
posted by Goofyy at 5:33 AM on June 13, 2007

Yeah... I pretty much already know how to do this. Fun times. :P
posted by delmoi at 5:36 AM on June 13, 2007

I have hundreds of mushrooms popping up in my backyard every day is there any fool-proof way to find out if they are poisonous or edible?
posted by any major dude at 7:20 AM on June 13, 2007

Well, considering what might happen if you made a mistake, the only foolproof way to know is to either study agaricology or find an agaricologist to help you. Slightly less foolproof is to find a guide book to help you identify them.
posted by Dave Faris at 8:09 AM on June 13, 2007

I have hundreds of mushrooms popping up in my backyard every day is there any fool-proof way to find out if they are poisonous or edible?

There are mycological organizations which might help you with this.
posted by peeedro at 8:26 AM on June 13, 2007