Growing/First time

Well, as promised, here are a few pictures of my fruiting chamber with the 5 cakes inside. I wish I had a good camera to take these pictures with, but at least you can all get the idea and see how I'm progressing . If I didn't screw up, I should hopefully see some pins within a week! I can't wait! I'm probably going to burst into tears if I screwed it up somehow .

 

Nice!

Good job with everything so far, and dont worry too much about messing up. From the looks of it, you'll be just fine.

Wait till they start popping up... it is one of the best feelings in the world haha. I was sooo fuckin happy my first time.

 

Haha, I'm sure it is. I'm like a eager little schoolkid every time I open it up to fan...just keep checking for knots and pins :| . I'm probably going to make a mess of my pants when they start growing.

 

i think these may be some of the first pics i've seen of someone using the tall 1/2 pint jars like i used to instead of the wide mouthed ones everyone seems to favor! haha...maybe i just dont remember seeing others though....

anyway, its too late for much input from me i think, but i definitely support home cultivation as long as its for strictly non-commercial, responsible use. it really gives you a better sense of connection to the sacrament when you have it, its educational (we watch plants and creatures get born and grow and die all our lives, but how many of us get such an in depth close up view of the life cycles of mushrooms???), and it really is a fulfilling experience.

and at least with things like the PF tek, its just as easy as baking a cake from a recipe, you just need to develop a different kind of vocabulary.

as for the pre-innoculated growboxes as they sell at amazing-nature, i'm pretty sure that they work really well and they should by all reason be fairly resistant to contamination, but unfortunately mycellium is not legal everywhere in the world. at least in the united states, the fungus is illegal because it contains measurable quantities of scheduled substances. these substances are not present in spores, making them legal by default, but as soon as they germinate and you see some mycellium, theres also some (albeit small) amounts of psilocin and psilocybin, and therefore these kits are illegal in the US. most companies that offer them do not ship to the states, and you CAN get in some real trouble if the parcel falls into the wrong hands - especially since its an international order.

know your local laws do-it-yourself is better in general anyways, though, in my opinion.

but hey - how long have you been waiting for the pins? if you birthed the cake a little while ago and its just not happening, you could try cold shocking them. just stick em in the fridge on the least cold setting for about 24 hours. i've not done it, but hear it works wonders. and if you want to try it but are afraid of doing something wrong, then if you have more than one cake or so you can just try it with one...

 

awesome! props on your crops.arty:

 

Thanks .

I just birthed those 5 cakes when I made that post...so...two nights ago.

It turns out that last cake colonized just fine and I just finished dunking it for 12 hours, rolling it, and putting it in the fruiting chamber with the others! I'll watch it like a hawk and remove it the second I see any signs of contam, but I think it's fine. I got lucky there.

From what I hear, the whole cold shocking thing is pointless for cubes. I've done quite a bit of research over at shroomery, and the gurus all say cold shocking is only useful for the other varieties of mushrooms. I did dunk them in the fridge, but that's mainly just to help avoid contams while dunking. From what I understand, it takes anywhere from 3-7 days to see knots/pins, and then another 4-7 days for them to mature. Since it's only been 2 days since birthing, I still have a bit of time . In the meantime, I've been treating them well...I fan and mist them about 4 times a day, and I give them about 12/12 light (maybe a bit more than 12 hours of light counting my room light). I also open my patio door (which is right beside the fruiting chamber ) for them to let natural, indirect sunlight and outside air in.

Almost there!

 

Holy crap I'm seeing some small knots and there's one pin! I'm so excited! AKLJFLKJFDLKJSDFLKJSFDLKJFD!! AAAAAHHHH!!! *sings sweet lullabies to his precious cakes*

GRRRROOOOOOWWWW!!

It's still too early to see just how many pins I'm going to get, but there are definitely clumps on the cake that I suspect will pin and there are several knots (white dots that are beginning to elongate, so I assume that's what they are). It looks like it might go fairly well!!

EDIT: I'll try and get some pictures next time I open to fan/mist.

 

I have found cold shocking to work well with cubies. Either way, it wouldn't hurt. Give it a go next time.

 

Well, technically I did cold shock I suppose since I dunked them in the fridge after birthing and that was for a good 18ish hours.

 

Well, my camera apparently sucks too bad to take any reasonable pictures of the pins, so I'll just describe it. I think my cakes are having a little bit of issues with moisture, as they feel pretty dry and have a barely noticeable blue tint to them (all except the one that I put in later than the others...go figure). I think this is the reason that all of my pins seem to be developing on the bottom of the cakes. I read up at the shroomery and I think this is pretty normal anyways, especially for a newbie like myself. All in all, though, it seems to be going pretty well. Out of the 3 cakes that have pinned so far, one has about 7-8 pins, one has about 5-6, and one has 3-4. These are actual pins I'm talking about (look like mini-shrooms), not just knots. Those cakes still have a few knotty areas, so I might still get quite a few more pins from them. The other 3 cakes have yet to pin, though I do see a slight bit of knotting on 2 of them. The cake I put in last isn't really knotting much or pinning yet, but it looks tons healthier than the others. I think this is because it had a little bit longer to colonize before the dunk, and so has been using up less moisture in the chamber itself.

I seriously can't wait!

 

awesome dude

 

Well my biggest clusters of pins have grown big enough to take some pictures of now, so here you go! These are 3 different pictures of 3 different cakes. Each of these cakes has an area that has a big cluster of pins, in addition to a few pins in other areas. My other 3 cakes have just started pinning, so they are a bit behind.

It won't be long now!

 

great job. i'm right behind you.

 

Awesome Gonna be posting any pics or anything yourself?

 

yeah i'll post some pics. i'm incubating 12 1/2 pint jars right now and i'll be starting on 12 quart jars using popcorn as substrate this week. this is FUN!

 

Isn't it though?? I was going to order some more spores and hit up another batch, but I ran into some money problems and such. Now my fruits are so close to being finished that I'm just gonna wait and make my own syringes! I'm hoping to get enough mushies out of this grow to last me until my next grow is near finishing .

It really is amazing watching the little guys grow. I have a feeling this will make me appreciate tripping from them quite a bit more.

 

Well, there has been considerable growth in the past couple of days, so I figured it was time for another update. Sorry if this is annoying anybody!

It looks like the 3 cakes that pinned first will produce around 8-10 pretty decent sized medium-large shrooms and a good 10-15 medium-short shrooms. Out of the other 3 cakes, one has an AMAZING pinset all the way around the bottom, one has a pretty decent pinset about like the good cake that is going well already, and one seems to only have 3-5 pins so far.

It should only be a day or so until harvest time for the first cake!

I didn't particularly feel like opening the chamber again so soon after I already had, so I just took pictures of a couple inside the chamber.

 

Well, I took some pictures of the cakes out of the FC and I also took a couple of pics of the cakes that just started pinning recently. Here they are!

 

Well, it only let me upload 5 pictures there, so here's the 2 pics of the pins. Sorry if I'm breaking one of the forum rules by doing that...if that's the case, let me know .

 

That is fucking beautiful.

Great job. Those are very stylish.. what strain are they?