Anybody growing mushrooms willing to talk???

[7L!fTeD24]

now you tell me!!!! lol.

came back today and have many more than just last week. guess i need another camping trip while the weather is great. found an awesome spot.

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Perfect setting!!!

 

[canndo]

If they are, you could probably spray with BTi right? I dunno about pf cakes or any indoor cult.. but I got gnats in my outdoor ovoid tub earlier this year and just sprinkled in some mosquito bits on top the mulch. Seemed to do the trick, and doesn't hurt the mycelium.

Don't spray mushrooms with anything but water. If there is any petroleum distillate in the spray you will get rosecomb and may concentrate the poisons within the mycelium. You might not have gnats, they might be mites.

I have used no pest strips with some success. They don't cause rosecomb and the Vapor dissipates rapidly as long as you only use it for a few days, wait till the eggs hatch and use it a bit more.

 

[rkymtnman]

when to harvest question: what am i looking for? can you harvest too early? or too late? thanks

 

[Fangthane]

My understanding is that it's mostly preference. I think a lot of people like to harvest just before the veil tears open and deposits spores on the sub. I'd at least pluck the 4 largest ones now.

 

[rkymtnman]

My understanding is that it's mostly preference. I think a lot of people like to harvest just before the veil tears open and deposits spores on the sub. I'd at least pluck the 4 largest ones now.

thanks!

best way to pluck? by hand? give a snip with sterilized scissors?

i did read about getting them before they dump spores: they are a black oily mess apparently

 

[Fangthane]

best way to pluck? by hand? give a snip with sterilized scissors?

i did read about getting them before they dump spores: they are a black oily mess apparently

I very gently grab them by the base and twist them off. Grab too hard and get bruising. I think the idea is to get them to pull off a small chunk of sub when you pluck. I let some go long enough to drop spores and it seemed like purely an aesthetic issue.

 

[rkymtnman]

I very gently grab them by the base and twist them off. Grab too hard and get bruising. I think the idea is to get them to pull off a small chunk of sub when you pluck. I let some go long though to drop spores and it seemed like purely an aesthetic issue.

from most reddit posts, twist and pull seems to be the way to do it. and get a bit of substrate like you mentioned.

 

[7L!fTeD24]

I ate some Apes and went fishing out on the lake not long ago

thanks!

best way to pluck? by hand? give a snip with sterilized scissors?

i did read about getting them before they dump spores: they are a black oily mess apparently

Yeah, I always try to pull them all Right before the veil tears and drops spores on the substrate. When spores drop on the sub No more mushrooms will grow in that spot. I take the mushroom and kinda rock it back and forth once, twist and pull. Just trying to not pull any sub up with it.

 

[Fangthane]

To clean them up after plucking, I held them under the faucet with gently running cold water and used an old toothbrush to brush off anything sticking to the base.

 

[7L!fTeD24]

To clean them up after plucking, I held them under the faucet with gently running cold water and used an old toothbrush to brush off anything sticking to the base.

If There's a little bit of sub still stuck on the stem It brushes off really easily after dehydrating.

 

[Fangthane]

True, but I guess I just wanted to limit how much gunk can fall down into the heating element area of the dehydrator.

 

[rkymtnman]

True, but I guess I just wanted to limit how much gunk can fall down into the heating element area of the dehydrator.

do you both use dehydrators?

guess i'll be doing the cardboard box in a well-ventilated room.

 

[Fangthane]

Poorly dried mushrooms can be very dangerous if the wrong stuff grows on them. A $50 dehydrator seems like a pretty reasonable insurance policy.

 

[rkymtnman]

Poorly dried mushrooms can be very dangerous if the wrong stuff grows on them. A $50 dehydrator seems like a pretty reasonable insurance policy.

wal-mart, here i come.

 

[Fangthane]

wal-mart, here i come.

Now that you've tasted success, you're probably not gonna want to stop growing them. MUCH easier to just load them up in your dehydrator for 18 hours than have a bunch of them sitting around in cardboard boxes for a week.

 

[rkymtnman]

Now that you've tasted success, you're probably not gonna want to stop growing them. MUCH easier to just load them up in your dehydrator for 18 hours than have a bunch of them sitting around in cardboard boxes for a week.

to be honest, i wasn't really counting on having a harvest with my first batch. lol. didn't look that far into the future.

 

[Fangthane]

I assumed failure, too. Maybe a week into harvesting the first flush was when I realized air-drying just wasn't gonna cut it for dealing with any real volume. That's when I ran out to buy one.

 

[Drop That Sound]

I've used my cheap 20x20" box fans to dry out fruits the last few times. I just set them right on the grill for a day or so. I also attach a 20x20" furnace filter on the opposite side with tape, so it's always blowing mostly clean air (upwards) into them. Not ideal, but it works. Especially if your only harvesting a few small batches.. If I was worried about them still retaining moisture, I would just set them in front of my dehumidifier or something for a little bit longer. I would think most of us cannabis growers has what it takes to dry a few shrooms out without a trip to the store..

 

[Fangthane]

I'm in a dusty, sandy, dog-infested place. For me, it was worth buying a small appliance to limit their time spent in open air collecting whatever wafts on the breeze. Rather just get them dried and bagged quickly.

 

[Drop That Sound]

That being said, what kind of dehydrator do you guys recommend? Is it worth building one of those modified DIY contraptions, where they add a whole extra 5 gallon bucket worth of space, for doing like a lb or more at a time?

Also, do they eventually smell like mush, and become loaded with spores? As in.. would you not want to use the same dehydrator to dry out other stuff like fruits & veggies? Better to keep a dedicated one for mycology purposes only?