Once you have sanitized your space, it’s time to inoculate. Break out that grow kit and let’s get shroomy!
Inoculation:
Once your grow space is selected, prepped and clean, you’re ready to inoculate your grow kit. We are assuming you have already followed the advice of the clean room section, and aren’t handling your grow kit without proper sterilization in place.
- Cut open the outer bag and uncurl the grow bag.
- Using alcohol pads, sanitize the grow port.
- Gently break apart the substrate in the grow bag.
- Attach a sterile needle to your mycelium culture syringe and inject the culture slowly into the substrate. We recommend inserting a few cc’s into the four corners, the middle, the top and the bottom in order to spread your mycelium out.
- Once you have injected your culture, set your grow bag in the provided box and wait.
- No really, that’s it. Now we wait.
Pinning and Patience
At the beginning of this course, we said that growing mushrooms is all about patience. Some mushrooms will start to pin around two weeks after inoculation. Some can take up to six weeks before you see anything. Every mushroom is different and every individual grow is different. Variations in season and temperature can affect a grow, so don’t be discouraged if you don’t have a full flush right away.
Blue Oysters typically take 2-3 weeks before pins appear, and during this time it is VERY important not to bother the shrooms! Leave them alone! Light, changes in temperature, and contaminants can all ruin a grow during the first few weeks, so once you have inoculated your substrate and set your grow bag in its spot, leave it alone for a minimum of 2 weeks. At the two week mark, check your grow for mycelium and pins (so called because these little baby mushrooms often look like small sewing pins). Pins are an excellent sign! Now leave your shrooms alone again for another few days until your first flush is ready to harvest.