WHAT IS A MUSHROOM SUBSTRATE?
Want to grow your own mushrooms? Then it is vital that you choose the right substrate. After all, growing them is not as easy as with cannabis plants, where soil from a garden centre is often enough. They need specific growing conditions, in which the substrate plays an important role. Another option is to grow your own mushrooms with a grow kit: the right substrate is included.
What is a mushroom substrate?
If you are going to grow mushrooms without a grow kit, you will have to make and add a substrate yourself. Normally, a mushroom gets its nutrition from nature, but since you want to grow your own mushrooms in this case, it needs to be able to get the nutrition from somewhere else. And that's what the substrate is for: it provides energy and nutrition to the mycelium. This is the network of fungal threads of the mushroom you want to grow. From the mycelium, fruiting bodies eventually grow above ground. So a healthy mycelium is very important if you are going to grow your own mushrooms!
Growing with mushroom substrates
Before use, you should always prepare the substrates. This includes adding moisture and other nutrients. You also need to pasteurise and sterilise it so that unwanted fungi, bacteria and other substances leave your substrate. This can cause your harvest to be a disaster, and of course you don't want that! You can sterilise your substrate under high pressure in a pressure cooker at a temperature of 120 °C or higher. For pasteurisation, you heat the substrate at 65-85°C for several hours.
Substrates you can use
If you want to grow mushrooms yourself, you will have to experiment a lot in the beginning. You can use different substrates to find out which gives the best results. There is no ideal substrate, but we have a list of substrates that give good results:
- Rice flour and vermiculite
- Coconut fibre and vermiculite
- Coffee grounds
- Wood block
- Live trees
- Manure
- Soya hulls
- Sawdust or wood chips
- Straw
You get the best substrate for growing mushrooms with coconut fibre and vermiculite. Straw and manure can also give good results. If you mix coconut and vermiculite 1:1, you will have enough nutrients to grow your mushrooms well. This doesn't mean that the other options don't work well; they too produce good results.
Want to read more about the substrates you can use for growing magic mushrooms? In another article, we explain in detail what types of substrates there are.
Grow with a magic mushroom grow kit
If you are new to growing magic mushrooms, consider starting with a ready-made mushroom grow kit. This contains everything you need to successfully grow your magic mushrooms. The grow kit already contains a good substrate and you will often also find a grow box, seeds, spore syringe, grow bag with air filter, alcohol and a manual. On our website, you can read more on growing psilocybin mushrooms part 1 & growing psilocybin mushrooms part 2.
How does it work?
A grow kit is simply a box of substrate with the mycelium of the mushroom, whose fruit you still have to grow. You can do this by performing just a few actions that are quite simple. Selling magic mushrooms is illegal in the Netherlands, but a grow kit is fortunately legal in the Netherlands. You just have to make sure your mushrooms grow properly and then you can enjoy them - and good to know: you can use your grow kit several times. Double the fun! You can read more about how to get the best results from your grow kit in another article.
Types of grow kits
Would you like to grow your own magic mushrooms, but could use some help? Then a grow kit is a good option. In our smartshop, you can get all-in-one growkits, fresh mushroom growkits and mondo growkits. All are high quality and super easy to set up and grow!
