This was too easy
When I got the idea to start growing mushrooms, I had no idea it would be so easy. Maybe I just got lucky, or it was the growing discipline that I had learned from growing cannabis, but it just seems like mushrooms are super easy to grow.
Last night, I had one mushroom that's veil had popped, so I picked it. Now this morning when I woke up, there were so many more that were ready to go. Right now they are pretty big, but I put them in the dehydrator and I am wondering how much they are going to shrink.
I have a timer set for 6 hours from now and I will be checking on them when it is over. It is recommended to dry them in the dehydrator for about 8 hours, but I just want to make sure they don't get too dry and crispy. I am sure that throughout the day there will be a lot more that are going to be ready to be harvested as well, and I can add them to another level in the dehydrator.
You can see in the photo above that some of the veils have popped and they are ready. You want to harvest them right after the veil pops, or even right before, because that is when they are at their max potency.
There are a couple different ways you can harvest them. You can either grab them from the bottom of the stem and twist and pull them up, or you can choose to cut the stem just above the substrate. Either of them is fine, but I have chosen to just pull them out so that I don't have a stem block or anything still in the substrate. As far as the crap on the bottom of the stem, you just brush it off as it is drying.
I am interested to see if more mushrooms will just keep popping up over the next few days too. I will be needing to check on the tub every hour throughout the day because these things grow really fast now and the veils will be popping all day long.
I injected some more grain with some Panaeolus cyanescens spores, so in about 2 months or so, I will be harvesting those and adding them to my collection. I am excited about those ones because they are supposed to be a pretty potent magic mushroom strain.
I am excited to be able to use these mushrooms as a replacement for my medications I was taking. I have been off my medication for a few months now and I actually started weening off of them when I started growing mushrooms. I still have some pretty bad withdrawal symptoms every now and then, which just solidifies the need to get off of the pharmaceutical medications.