Week 14 Updates

At this time, I've gotten to the point where I've achieved success with getting the mushrooms to fruit using the bag method. I harvested a couple beautiful flushes of blue oysters yesterday and today and they were really yummy!

At this point, I have some level of knowledge with the main processes needed to get mushrooms to grow all the way from the substrate sourcing and sterilization, to the colonization and fruiting. I think that the time has now come to focus on trying to make the grain spawn in house as opposed to spending 200 - 300 dollars a month on grain spawn from an outside supplier.

Mushroom farming is doing the same thing essentially three twice where the cultivator inoculates a growing medium and then allows the mycelium to expand. With agar in petri dishes and grain colonization, the idea is very similar to inoculating substrate.

I would need some sort of agar medium mixed with nutrients - I had obtained potato-dextrose agar a while back - then I just need to boil it with water, sterilize the agar in a sterilizer, then pour into petri dishes where living tissue from growing mushrooms can be inserted. In some 7 - 10 days, assuming propery cleanliness was maintained and no or minimal contamination, the mycelium will have expanded across the petri dish. A wedge can then be cut out with a sterilized scalpel and transfered to hydrated and sterilized grain spawn, where the mycelium will colonize it within 7 - 10 more days. Then a grain to grain inoculation can be done and up to many dozens of pounds (if not more?) can be easily colonized.

I'm fairly confident in my ability to do the above, so will likely proceed with the process from the next week. If I can get everything to work, then it will cut my monthly grain spawn cost from like ~$250 a month to ~$25. That is a big improvement! It will also allow me to potentially sell grain spawn to others interested in mushrooms.

On another note, I almost flooded my basement this past Sunday evening. I was about to go to sleep when the thought that I should check on the CO2 levels in the basement came to mind. When I went downstairs I found myself staring at a puddle in the middle of the room. Upon investigation, a non insignificant amount of water had been spread across the floor and I realized that the floating valve in one of the humidifiers was dislodged from its original location, allowing the continuous release of water from the main line. I had to spend the next two hours cleaning up the water. Thankfully, I caught this when I did and did not allow it to spread for the next eight to ten hours.

As a fix for this, I plan on building a safety mechanism. I will place the humidifiers in some sort of container, then I will attach a 1/2 inch tubing at the bottom of the container as a drain so that if the humidifiers ever overflow, the water flows into the container, through the piping, and into the hole where the basements sump pump lies. This will alleviate any concern about basement flooding if implemented correctly.

Finally, I also need to think a little bit more about selling as my farmers market days approached. My earliest farmers market begins as of the end of May on the Loyola campus. Therefore, I should try to have at least 30 - 40 pounds of mushroom ready for sale by that day (24 blocks should be sufficient for that amount - actual numbers should be a bit higher). I believe I am on track to produce that much as I don't seem to be losing too much to contamination or worryingly slow growth.

A few things I'm hoping to prepare for by then: (1) obtaining one or two more coolers - I have one at home but think I need one more, (2) getting appropriately sized packaging - I plan on just using paper bags of various sizes, (3) getting business cards and stickers to place on paper bags (or maybe an ink stamp instead), (4) making a little terrarium in which to place the mushrooms and maintain humidity using humidifier - make a pretty little display).

There really isn't too much I need to do just to get started - some vendors at certain farmers markets have just a bare bones set up with a 6-ft table, so as long as I can keep the mushrooms cool and fresh that should be good enough. I'm probably over worrying.

One final thought is that I wonder whether I should start trying to find a warehouse sooner than later. Though this sounds arrogant, I think the chance of myself not succeeding is lower then the chance of me making at least enough to break even. Therefore, I should operate as though I am going to succeed and not the other way around. As such, it would not be remiss for me to begin looking for local facilities where I could operate. I suspect I may be able to actually lease something around pig town as there is much land here and few people.

A quick google search reveals that the Carrol Camden years industrial area is right by my house, so I actually think my location may be ideal for the transfer to a warehouse within the next few months. I should likely focus on getting to at least three- to four- thousand in sales before considering such move.