Mushrooms have been used for centuries by traditional people and shamans or medicine men to go into altered states of consciousness and visit other dimensions. Magic mushrooms or hallucinogenic fungi such as the fly agaric or Amanita muscaria must be used carefully as they can be toxic, especially when identified incorrectly. Many species or varieties of mushrooms that may appear very similar can have vastly different properties.

Mushroom identification out in the woods or forests is a skill our ancestors acquired eons ago, but in our modern age that puts more value on science and material wealth than appreciation of nature and spirituality, being expert at identifying specific plants and knowing their applications are talents and abilities that have fallen by the wayside. Unless you are a mycologist, a mushroom scientist, or a serious student of the different kinds of mushrooms that grow in nature, you are likely to be ill equipped to correctly know the difference between, for example, an Amanita muscaria and one of its look-alike cousins in the mushroom family.

When it comes to finding any kind of mushroom out in the wild, your search will be most productive if you know not only when but also where to do your looking. Wild mushrooms are not like vegetables in a garden that are planted and harvested on a convenient time schedule. To the uninitiated observer it may seem that they have minds of their own, appearing and disappearing with very little rhyme or reason. But, like our ancestors of old who were in tune with the natural rhythms of the earth, those who closely study wild fungi know there are likely areas and seasons when one’s quest for these marvelous morsels will be most productive.

In the Northern Hemisphere, Amanita muscaria grow as natives all through the temperate and boreal regions. In addition, they have accidentally been transported to a large number of Southern Hemisphere countries. Searches will be most productive in woodlands where birch, pine, cedar fir and spruce trees are abundant. Although they are most often found in the fall, the seasonal variations are dependant on various climate zones. Whereas in the greatest areas of North America they appear during the summer and autumn, in Pacific coastal regions they come out later, in the late fall and early winter.

In some parts of Australia, particularly in the southeast, Amanita grows like a weed, and there are concerns, especially in rainforest areas around Victoria and Tasmania that it could be pushing out some native species.

For someone desiring to plant their own garden of Amanita mushrooms, they are advised to do so in the autumn or spring. Most of the growth happens underground during spring and summer, and depends on how much rainfall there is, or, if you are watering the garden yourself, according to how much moisture the soil contains.

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fragment of a discovery channel video about the rainforest. I like the mushroom part and actually it is not that difficult to make a similar video

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Advice on the easiest way to find Amanita muscaria mushrooms is available online at the Amanita muscaria report website, http://amanitamuscariareport.com.

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If you’re not the type of person that wants to spend their time managing an elaborate fruit or vegetable garden, you might consider planting and maintaining an herb garden. While the product might not seem as significant, you’ll still enjoy the constant availability of fresh, delicious herbs to flavor your meals with.

First you’ll want to choose the herbs that you’ll plant. You might have a hard time doing this because of the huge scope of herbs available. But the best way to choose is to do what I did; just look at what you have in your kitchen. By planting your own collection of these herbs, you can save money on buying them from the grocery store while having the added benefit of freshness. Some of the herbs you might start with include rosemary, sage, basil, dill, mint, chives, and parsley among others.

When choosing an area to put your herb garden, you should remember that the soil should have extremely good drainage. If the dirt gets watered and stays completely saturated, you have no chance of ever growing a healthy plant. One of the best ways to fix the drainage problem is to dig a foot deep in the soil, and put a layer of crushed rocks down before replacing all the soil. This will allow all that water to escape, thus saving your plants.

When you are ready to begin planting herbs, you might be tempted to buy the more expensive plants from the store. However, with herbs it is much easier to grow them from seed than it is with other plants. Therefore you can save a bundle of money by sticking with seed packets. Some herbs grow at a dangerously fast rate. For example, if you plant a mint plant in an open space then it will take over your entire garden in a matter of days. The best way to prevent this problem is to plant the more aggressive plants in pots (with holes in the bottom to allow drainage, of course). When it comes time to harvest the herbs you have labored so hard over, it can be fatal to your plant to take off too much. If your plant isn’t well established, it isn’t healthy to take any leaves at all, even if it looks like its not using them. You should wait until your plant has been well established for at least several months before taking off any leaves. This wait will definitely be worth it, because by growing unabated your plant will produce healthily for years to come.

Once you’ve harvested your delicious home grown herbs, you’ll want to use them in cooking. Why else would you have grown them? Well first the process begins with drying them out. This is easily achieved by placing them on a cookie sheet and baking them 170 degrees Fahrenheit for 2 to 4 hours. After they’re sufficiently dried to be used in cooking, you can consult the nearest cookbook for instructions on using them to effectively flavor a dish.

If you want to store your herbs for later usage, you should keep them in a plastic or glass container. Paper or cardboard will not work, because it will absorb the taste of the herbs. During the first few days of storage, you should regularly check the container and see if any moisture has accumulated. If it has, you must remove all the herbs and re-dry them. If moisture is left from the first drying process, it will encourage mildew while you store your herbs. Nobody likes mildew.

So if you enjoy herbs or gardening, or both, then you should probably consider setting up an herb garden. It might require a little bit of work at first to set it up for optimal drainage, and pick what herbs you want to grow. But after the initial hassle, it’s just a matter of harvesting and drying all your favorite herbs.

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www.fungifun.org My longest time lapse so far. 1661 images were photographed over a time period of 5 days, 18 hours and 25 minutes. A Canon PowerShot G3 digital camera connected to a computer was programmed to take one shot every 5 minutes. Processing was done with Photoshop and VirtualDub. The substrate was rye, the casing consisted of peat moss, vermiculite and crushed limestone.

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Read about how to grow tomatoes and how to grow grass at the How to Grow Things website.

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Creating Grain Spawn

Cereal grains such as wheat, rye, millet, maize, amaranth, quinoa, etc. can be used as a vehicle to expand your substrate mass into bulk substrates. If you’ve mastered half-pint jars, making grain spawn is the next logical step. When a jar of grain is completely colonized it can be used to inoculate other jars of grain using what’s called a grain to grain transfer. G2G for short. Paul Stamet’s explains that 1 jar of colonized grain can inoculate 10 more jars of grain. Each of these jars in turn can inoculate 10 more jars and finally those can inoculate 10 bags of bulk substrate each. Do the math and you are expanding your mycelial mass up to 10,000 times the original jar. (Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, 2000).

Check out our Pre-Sterilized Rye Jars with our special self-healing injection site lid if you don’t have a pressure cooker or the time required to process them.

If you would like to create your own Rye jars, simply follow these instructions and start making your own grain spawn to experiment with.

There are many lid designs that can be used with your quart jars. We recommend drilling four ¼” holes as you normally would in half-pint jar lids. Then drill one larger hole in the center. This will be filled with a High Temp Gasket sealer to create a self-healing injection site. If you are using the quart jars for grain to grain transfers you can leave out the injection site.

Depending on the size of your pressure cooker you will want to adjust the amount of ingredients to suit how many quart size jars you will be able to sterilize at one time. For each quart jar measure out 200g or 250 ml of organically grown rye. You can use the quart jars for measuring. Simply pour the rye into each jar to the 250 ml level. We will need to set a pot large enough to hold enough water to cover all of the rye grains put together.

Fill your pot with enough water and heat to boiling. Immerse your grains in the water and then lower the heat. Keeping it up high will cause the grains to break open and this can lead to contamination later on. We want to steep the grains for one hour stirring now and then. For my stove I lower the heat from level 8 to level 3 when putting the grains in and then on down to level 1 after twenty minutes. Your stove will be different but I included these settings to show an example. The grains will start to swell from absorbing water as time goes on.

After your hour of steeping is up you will want to drain off the excess water and then pour the grains through a strainer. I usually rinse off the grains before loading them in the quart jars. Scoop enough grain so that each jar is evenly filled. Place your lids on loosely and cover them with a square of aluminum foil to keep water droplets from landing on the lid and seeping through to the interior.

Load your pressure cooker with the jars and fill the it up to the desired water level. Now, take your jars back out and preheat your pressure cooker water to boiling. This will help prohibit more grains from exploding during the heating process. After the water has started to boil, load the pressure cooker again and place the lid on. After the pressure cooker starts to sizzle at 15 p.s.i., set your timer for 90 minutes.

Allow the pressure cooker to cool to room temperature before removing the lid. Shake the jars when removing them to mix up the grains. The grains on the bottom might be more moist than the rest and will need redistributed. Allow the jars to cool for 24 hours before attempting to inoculate them.

When you inoculate your jars, it is best to work in a clean area to prohibit bacteria from contaminating your substrate. Cleanse the area well and nuke the air with Lysol. Using a culture syringe, insert the needle through the self-healing injection site and administer 1 cc of solution per jar. Shake up the grains to distribute the solution and incubate at between 82-86 degrees F. After five days, you can shake the jar one more time to aid in speeding up colonization time. If the jars have not colonized within 14-21 days the jar is most likely contaminated or the temperatures are too low.

Grain to Grain Transfer

When a Quart Rye Jar is fully colonized it can be used to inoculate up to 10 more jars to expand your mycelium and increase substrate mass thus increasing yields. Inoculating a grain jar with colonized substrate is faster than using a Liquid Culture because there is more mycelium to reproduce and proliferate. The procedure is fairly simple. The main concern is sterility when opening the uncolonized substrate jars.

First thing.

You should wait approximately 1 week after the jar has colonized to ensure the interior has colonized as well and allow the mycelium to digest the substrate in preparation for fruiting. A rye jar usually colonized in about 3-4 weeks. Sometimes this can take longer if the temperature is not between 82-86 degrees during incubation.

When you are sure colonization is complete you will need to break up the grain so that you can inoculate your other substrates. Using a tire is perfect for this. Just make sure there are no cracks in the jar or it could break. You should also use safety goggles when doing this.

After the grains have broken up, place it back in your incubation area and wait 24 hours. This will help rule out contaminations. The next day, mycelium should be growing again. If it has not within 24 hours the jar is considered contaminated by bacteria and should be thrown out. If you use it then you are potentially contaminating all of your new substrate jars.

The following day when you are ready to inoculate your jars, you should clean your work area, table and air with some cleaner. Any automatic air should be turned off one hour before the procedure. This helps calm the air and reduce the risk of airborne contaminates entering the jar when you open it. Ideally, you should be working in front of a Flow Hood but a Sterilized Glovebox will work as well. If you are using a glovebox, load the jars at this time.

The Procedure: Reshake the colonized jar to break up the grains. To inoculate the new rye jars, remove the lid from your colonized jar and the lid from the fresh substrate jar. Shake some colonized rye grains into the fresh substrate. There should be enough to divide the 1 colonized jar into 10 new ones.

Continue with the rest of the jars. Remove the lid, quickly inoculate with rye grain and replace the lid. The less time the lid is off the better. Incubate your jars the same way you did the first one. After these have colonized you can do several things with the grain.

• Use each jar to inoculate 10 more jars each

• Fruit the mushrooms right out of the top of the jar (depending on your species; not all mushrooms fruit directly from grain)

• Use the colonized grain to inoculate any of our 3 lb Substrate Spawn Bags. In most cases these can be fruited directly using our grow chambers or a humidity tent.

• Use the colonized grain to inoculate Pasteurized Straw

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Kenny Point demonstrates how to grow your own crop of gourmet mushrooms through hardwood inoculation. View Kenny’s Blog: www.veggiegardeningtips.com Follow Kenny on Twitter twitter.com

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Be sure to check out our website for a wide variety of mushroom growing supplies including live culture syringes and complete mushroom grow kits
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http://www.the-shroom-room.com/

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