Beginner’s Guide to Growing Mushrooms

Welcome to Mycelium Made Easy! Whether you're curious about magic mushrooms, gourmet varieties, or just fascinated by fungi – this is your no-nonsense guide to starting your first home grow.

🔍 What You’ll Learn

  • The basic stages of mushroom growth
  • Different beginner-friendly grow methods
  • What equipment you’ll need
  • Key concepts like sterilisation and contamination
  • What to expect on your first grow

🌱 The Mushroom Growth Stages (Simplified)

  1. Inoculation – introducing spores or liquid culture to a growing medium (like grain).
  2. Colonisation – mycelium grows and spreads through the substrate.
  3. Fruiting – fresh air, humidity, and light trigger mushrooms to grow.
  4. Harvest & Repeat – mushrooms are picked, and more flushes may follow.

🧰 Popular Beginner Methods

Let’s look at the most common options for getting started:

🧠 Important Concepts

🔬 Sterilisation & Cleanliness

  • Contamination is your biggest enemy. Spores are everywhere.
  • For PF Tek and Spawn to Bulk, you'll need clean surfaces, gloves, and (ideally) a still air box (SAB) or flow hood.

🌡️ Temperature & Light

  • Colonisation prefers warm (~25°C) and dark
  • Fruiting prefers cooler (~21°C), indirect light, and fresh air

💧 Humidity & Air Exchange

  • Mushrooms need moisture and fresh air to fruit
  • Misting and fanning are part of daily fruiting care unless automated

📦 What You’ll Eventually Need

(Depending on the method)

  • Spore syringe or liquid culture
  • Pressure cooker or pre-sterilised bags
  • Substrate materials (e.g., brown rice flour, rye grain, coco coir, vermiculite)
  • Fruiting chamber or monotub
  • Gloves, spray bottle, SAB, etc.

🎯 Your First Grow – What to Expect

  • It will take 4–6 weeks to get your first flush
  • Contamination is common on your first few grows – don’t stress!
  • You’ll learn more from failures than successes
  • Each flush gives diminishing returns – 2–3 flushes is common

🚀 Ready to Dive Deeper?

Choose your method and get stuck in:

🙋 Questions?

Check out our FAQ Page or join our growing Discord community for help from fellow shroomheads.