Nearing the first larger harvest

It’s been about a month since my last post, and during that time I’ve been busy. I’ve taken the grain spawn I made in the video I posted and used it to produce 80 gallons of inoculated bulk substrate. I’ve incubated that substrate for a couple weeks, and moved it into my second tent for pinning, which is the first stage of actual mushroom growth. I’m now ready to switch the tent to fruiting conditions, at which point all of the little pins will spring forth into large clusters of harvestable mushrooms. A few of the mushrooms have taken this last step early, helpfully volunteering to be used for promo shots and taste testing. Tonight I’ll be cooking my first King Blue Oysters and Lion’s Mane.

In preparation for actually selling my first harvest I’ve acquired just about everything I need to set up a farm stand, and ordered a 20 cubic foot refrigerator to store the harvest in. Since I’m still in the process of setting up the business side of things (my wife’s flower farm and I will both be operating under our new umbrella company, Be Kind LLC of Oregon), and haven’t finished acquiring insurance yet, I’ve also purchased a large scale dehydrator in case some of the first harvest cannot be sold immediately. Friends, neighbors and family may also soon find themselves being showered with free sample mushrooms, as the first harvest may in fact arrive a bit ahead of the refrigerator.

Along the way the new atmospheric pressure sterilizer has been delightful, the second grow tent has worked wonderfully and the lower energy fruiting technique that doesn’t require full sterilization of the bulk substrate seems to be working perfectly. All off to an excellent start.

More updates soon, possibly including a way of actually ordering some of my mushrooms. Stay tuned!