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Few supplements have traveled as far from their origins as lion's mane. What was once a foraged mushroom brewed into tea by mountain ascetics is now sold as a focus aid in dropper bottles and stirred into $8 lattes. That journey is worth understanding before you decide whether the powder deserves a place in your cabinet, because the honest answer depends far less on the mushroom itself than on the life you're asking it to improve. A mushroom with a long lineage Lion's mane is

What Happens in the Dark Before the Bloom How fungi and plants gather in secret — sometimes for decades — before they fruit, and why the spectacle is always the smallest part of the story. The Invisible Empire A mushroom seems to arrive from nowhere. Overnight a patch of ground throws up a ring of caps that were not there the evening before, and the apparent suddenness is the whole illusion — and the whole lesson. The mushroom is not the organism. It is the fruit. The organis

Foreword: Two Histories, Two Reputations Long before either mushroom entered a laboratory, both had a place in human life—but the places could not have been more different. Psilocybin mushrooms have a documented history of ritual and ceremonial use stretching back centuries, most famously among Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. In the highlands of what is now Mexico, Psilocybe species were used by Mazatec, Aztec, and other cultures in healing and divinatory ceremonies—the Az

Most people who get into gourmet mushroom farming start with oyster mushrooms, and for good reason. But I've been turning over a more interesting question lately: what would it look like to focus on one of the harder, higher-value species instead? Specifically maitake, also known as hen of the woods (Grifola frondosa). This isn't a business plan, it's a thought experiment, a way of thinking through the economics, the challenges, and what actually makes this mushroom such a co

It is impossible to enter into the world of fungus without being exposed to magic mushrooms. What are magic mushrooms? - some ask. They are specific species of mushrooms growing naturally in the wild contain psilocybin. Upon ingestion, this compound is broken down into psilocyn, which dissolves the brains default mode network. This is like the guardrails which structure our mind and thoughts. On psilocybin the world around us breaks down, and we are filled with a sense of awe

Recently for my main job, we were doing a light renovation of a house in Maryland where we had discovered a leak in the first-floor ceiling a couple months prior. Initially, I was under the impression that the leak was coming from the roof, as it had been re-tiled about a month prior. However, a coworker confirmed that there was no damage in the second-floor bathroom right above it - bathroom... yep, that was the source of the problem, even though we have yet to identify the

At this time, I've realized that honing the fruiting conditions by controlling temperature more tightly is more important than quantity. The grow tents that I had used formerly - from AC Infinity - had basically no insulation. I recall placing an AC unit in one of them to "pre-condition" the air before feeding into the next room to lower the temperature in the summer. The temperature lowed by only a couple degrees -_-. This is because I had no idea of even the elementary prin

This past year has been an incredible year in learning - I would categorize what I've learned into three buckets: Technical growing skill Marketplaces and business Philosophy and life Those who know me know me know how obsessed I can get over technical details and this year has been an extreme exercise in learning. With no prior experience, I had to learn the entire process of mushroom production from substrate sourcing and mixing, to sterilization, to inoculation, to fruitin

In an email I had received from Gary, a gentleman running a small but successful mushroom business ( Fresh from the Farm Fungus ), he had inquired as to what genetics and substrate I was using - in response to an email I had first sent him asking why my yields were not optimal. I had seemingly fine-tuned the environment (humidity, temp, air flow, lighting) but hadn't put much thought into the substrate on which I was growing the mushrooms. Actually, I was using a reliable and

In my recent article, titled "Medicinal Mushrooms, Raw Powders, and the Extraction Problem" I noted how many mushroom businesses do not properly extract compounds from powders and sell it to customers in the raw from which has minimal medicinal benefits (given that customers do not know how to exact it properly). I had noted, however, that mushroom tinctures, were the exception and that those who buy mushroom tinctures were likely to be getting reliable and honest produce. It

This article was entirely generated by Chat GPT but edited and reviewed by myself for accuracy A customer once asked me a question that seemed simple on the surface but ended up changing how I thought about my entire operation. He was standing at my market table looking over the mushrooms and asked me whether we sprayed glyphosate on our crops. I answered immediately and honestly: no, we do not spray anything on the mushrooms. At the time, the conversation moved on, and I tho

This Article was entirely generated by Chat GPT through numerous prompts - It has been reviewed by myself and aligns with my general opinions on medicinal mushrooms and the mushroom industry. I first began to question the medicinal mushroom industry while trying to grind turkey tail into a powder to sell. No matter what grinder I used, the result was the same: a strange, fluffy, cotton-like material that refused to become a clean, uniform powder like lion’s mane or shiitake.

As mentioned in previous articles, I have dragged my feet on the lab work ever since I started this mushroom farming endeavor. One of my first goals was to move the lab work in house, but at every point it just seemed easier to continue to buy commercial grain spawn from other suppliers rather than struggling through the process of making my own and potentially ruining entire batches due to hidden contamination. However, thanks to the recent realization that I can just buy cl

This past week, my oyster mushrooms were hit by some sort of bacterial botch, which infected perhaps ~75% of the flushes. It is curious that some of them were infected while others remained clean, but given that most were affected, it is clearly airborne and not specific to a single or few grow bags. The botch seems to have been the most prominent at the in the middle of the caps were there is a slight recess and at the base of the flushes. You can kind of see based on thes

A friend recently asked me if I could help him grow mushrooms in his home - I don't think he knew exactly what he wanted so, in this article, I'm going to go over a few options for at-home growing depending on your budget and level of commitment. First, I will go over starting a small grow operation for the least amount of money possible, then I will provide a couple other options if either more money or time commitment is available. For some context, mushroom farming involve

At this point, all of my "research" simply involves querying Chat GPT or Grok and learning about the subject matter by speaking to the "expert." This approach is not necessarily bad - I can learn quickly about what I'm interested in, but there are two obvious problems. First, the AI is not always correct and may spit out incorrect answers, so cross-referencing and somehow validating data is always important. If using the research for something important, it must be validated

Having been growing mushrooms for almost ten months now, I have been taking a step back to critically examine my whole process. I have gotten a decent hold over the fruiting process and optimized the air flow, humidity, lighting, etc. I noted in a previous post that the temperature was one factor that I did not have a good control over due to having no powerful HVAC unit. In doing all of the above, I have gotten to about 100 - 120% BE with lions mane and maybe around 100% BE

Another attempt at pouring agar has yielded improvement but other problems. One difficulty with pouring agar is the trick of pouring it right before it congeals into a solid state. I was using a no-contact digital thermometer to read temps as I read optimal pouring was between 120 - and 130F, but it seemed to not read the fluid temperature in the glass jar very well. By pouring between those two temperatures, you avoid condensation on the agar plates, which can sometimes be a

Mushroom farming has been a continual exercise in patience and mistake spotting. In just the past few weeks, I realized that I had been making a series of mistakes - each large in and of themselves. I guess that it is not so easy just to quit your job and jump into another industry. While others have commended my bravery for starting this journey, I originally thought nothing of it thinking my choice to be mundane and easy - maybe others have a more realistic picture of what

Master’s Mix Compost: Turning Spent Mushroom Blocks into Garden Gold Master’s Mix is a substrate originally developed for growing...