This is from the first grow I did, PF tek style but with a few updates. I did a couple monotub grows a year later that went great but I can't for the life of me find any pics.

The white pebbles are perlite and the cake is mostly rice bran meal and fine vermiculite, with a little coffee and gypsum.

  • happybadger [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Psilocybin is one of those elements of fungiculture that appeal to me as a political project. Culinary mushrooms are really cheap to grow and are a premium ingredient in poverty cuisine so you can really contribute to a Black Panther breakfast kind of thing, but psilocybin is something special. In both microdose and recreational dose forms, it's a very safe drug which counters alienation in a way others don't. It grows so cheaply that you can give it away without a second thought to price, grows so easily that it's a great springboard into fungiculture, and when you find the people it can really help it has a profound impact on them in my experience. Unlocking a greater sense of introspection and compassion and appreciation in someone works against alienation with its related traumas and toward self-actualisation.

    • Darthsenio_Mall [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      4 years ago

      This is a top notch post. The mention of Black Panther breakfast has me wondering if the Food Not Bombs chapter around here would be interested in mushrooms grown by some random hobbyist.

      • happybadger [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        If not them, I see potential in local mutual aid orgs (Here we have an anarchist militia, the Colorado Mutual Aid and Defense) and whatever party/movement steps up when the economy goes to shit. With something like log colonies, that's a foolproof method of recycling waste (I just got like two dozen logs for free from a guy cutting down an invasive hardwood species, municipalities and homeowners trim theirs all season) with 1-3lbs of mushrooms per log per year growing anywhere there is shade and a hose. I keep looking at the space I'm putting my new batch of logs, a barren rock path between my garden and garage, and seeing it as a small contribution to a project which is still larger than I'd be able to contribute in vegetables. A few large straw oyster logs cost all of $5~ and make 6-12lbs of high quality protein that has positive effects on poverty-linked illnesses like diabetes and cardiovascular/immunological/neurological dysfunction. When meat is unaffordable, that's a very powerful niche providing the luxury part of a meal and the bread book to go with the bread.