Where to start
Pick the product that matches what you want to do next. A ready-to-fruit block is for a first harvest. Spawn is for inoculating your own substrate. A plate or a syringe is for keeping a strain. Instructions come with every order.
Start with a harvest
A ready-to-fruit block arrives fully colonized. Your job is fresh air and a clean harvest. Choose 5 lb for a first block, or 10 lb when you want more mushrooms from the same setup.
Blue oyster, pink oyster, golden oyster, and lion's mane are the varieties most people start with. Check back often, because sometimes a surprise variety is in stock.
If you want one of each, the mixed pack is blue oyster, lion's mane, golden oyster, and pink oyster.
Blocks are made to order, usually in 1 to 3 weeks. The 30-day grow guarantee covers a block that does not fruit when you follow the instructions that come with it.
Inoculate your own substrate
Grain spawn is mycelium grown through grain. Use G2 to inoculate sawdust and other bulk substrate. Use G1 when you are expanding that mycelium onto more grain. A label such as 1.0, 2.0, or FF is the strain, not the bag size.
Sawdust spawn is the practical choice for logs, stumps, and outdoor beds, especially when you are inoculating a lot of wood. For a few logs, plug spawn is the better tool: each dowel goes in its own hole, then you wax it. That is the usual way to start shiitake on fresh hardwood. Chestnut, brown oyster, chicken of the woods, and maitake are on plug spawn too, when that option is in stock.
Two all-in-one bags look similar and are not interchangeable.
The coco all-in-one is grain plus coco coir, for dung-loving species. Inject it through the port with liquid culture or with spores. We do not sell spores.
The wood-lover all-in-one is a hardwood bag for species that fruit on wood. It is not the coco bag.
If you already have a clean culture and only need grain, sterilized grain bags are ready for the syringe.
Keep a strain
This step belongs in a clean workspace. It is not the way to get a first harvest.
A liquid culture syringe is 10 mL of mycelium in liquid. It inoculates grain or an all-in-one bag.
A culture plate is the same strain on agar. One healthy plate can be expanded onto grain or into liquid.
Pre-poured Petri dishes are empty sterile plates for transfers, clones, and your own isolations. They do not contain a culture.
How to learn more
Come spend a day with us. Our hands-on workshop is at the farm, and our online workshop meets live on Zoom.
Our guided foray and our farm tour are a gentler way to visit.
If you are planning a farm, start with consulting. Allen Carroll co-founded MushroomTek for commercial growers. MushroomTek is a separate company from Fungi Farm.