Mini greenhouse (Martha) setup for growing exotic mushrooms (Patreon)

First just a quick update on significant legislative news since I haven't done that in a while.  There are now over 100 US cities that have decriminalized one or more psychedelics including the largest city to date, San Francisco.  But even bigger than that, the state of Colorado just voted THIS WEEK to:

• define certain psychedelic plants and fungi as natural medicine, including dimethyltryptamine (DMT); ibogaine; mescaline (excluding peyote); psilocybin; and psilocin;

• decriminalize the personal use, possession, growth, and transport of natural medicines for persons 21 years old and older; and

• create a Regulated Natural Medicine Access Program for licensed healing centers to administer natural medicine services.

CONGRATULATIONS COLORADO! 👍❤️ it was a relatively close vote but passed by about 5% more Yes votes than No's.  As far as I am aware, none of the jurisdictions that have decriminalized psychedelics have reported any significant problems from doing so.  And let's be honest, the number of people abusing alcohol is always going to be astronomically higher than the number of people having problems with psychedelics so it remains absurd and hypocritical to have legal alcohol and illegal mushrooms 😇 It's nice that Colorado, Oregon, and Washington D.C. all recognize this, 48 more states to go.

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OK, I created this short video by request showing my mini greenhouse setup, hopefully it doesn't get censored.  I will put it on the other video sites too, the YouTube link is:  https://youtu.be/CvsAituAYPQ or on TikTok or on odysee

I actually think it's easier to grow without a martha/greenhouse (simpler and requires less equipment, less expense and less setup time).  The reasons for using a martha/greenhouse would be if you didn't have the space for an open grow, or you wanted to contain the humidity better, or to shield the grow from airborne contaminants a little better.

If you are interested in a complete greenhouse setup with all the parts in one kit you can find that from MidwestGrowKits, my affiliate link: https://midwestgrowkits.referralrock.com/l/1GORDOTEK90/Ecosphere

Amazon Affiliate links for things in the vid (using these helps support my work):
Mini greenhouse

Kyvol humidifier  (if not available here is an alternative that should work)

Mini smart plugs to control fan/humidifier/heater

You can probably find a small heater with its own thermostat or buy any heater and a separate thermostatic switch.

Small variable speed fan with direct plug in and good reviews

LED shop light

If you want to monitor conditions in your greenhouse from anywhere using your phone, check out this Govee WiFi Thermometer Hygrometer recommended by a patron or this similar inkbird.

Some people also use a humidity controller to further automate things.  I didn't  find it necessary, seemed like overkill, but I can definitely see the use case for it, especially if you want to fine tune things.  But it's usually easy to tell if the block is getting too wet or too dry.  Look for puddles or if you pick it up and tilt it over and water runs out-> lower the humidity time.  Or if the blocks are starting to dry out they will shrink and pull away from the container edges leaving gaps-> increase humidification time and/or hand watering.

To keep the greenhouse clean, you can wipe down the tent walls, humidifier and pipes, with disinfecting wipes and/or dilute bleach water.  If it ever gets too bad, you can buy replacement plastic covers for pretty cheap, this cover was $14 and it was a perfect fit for me (this is the actual cover shown in the video).  You can also put one of these mats under your greenhouse to catch any excess water.

In the winter for cold climate areas, the indoor air can sometimes be extremely dry and your heater may be kicking on a lot, this actually causes fresh air exchange all by itself and I have found that you can actually completely disable the fan (forced air) in conditions like that or cut it way back, perhaps 5 minutes every hour.  In dry conditions like this you may also need to increase your humidification time to something like 10-15 minutes every hour for example.

Note that some people like to make sure their humidifier pipe tilts slightly UP (instead of down like the one in the vid and pic below) this prevents any drops of water from directly hitting your trays and the excess water just runs back into your humidifier.  I'm not sure which configuration is better, it may not be good for water to be running back into the humidifier (especially if the pipe accumulated some contamination).  With a down pointing pipe you could place a shallow tray or cup right under the end of the pipe to catch any drippings, I've also tried just placing the grow trays such that they don't get direct water dripped on them from the pipe, the drips go right to the bottom and wash out the tub under the greenhouse so its a self cleaning environment ;) But I have also tried the upward pointing pipe configuration and it seemed to work OK and then you don't have to worry about water dripping onto grow trays.  I think for simplicity, after trying both configurations for a while, I'd recommend the upward pointing pipe.

For the sake of fully documenting how the world record flush was grown, here are some additional details: it was on the coir/manure based substrate (no straw) described in my TEK with the pan cyan cultivar "Tamarind Tree British Virgin Islands" (which was selectively bred in Europe for a couple of years before it got to me):

Harvested in a slightly less than fully mature state (as shown), immediately dried "to a crisp" for 4 hours at 145F (63C) in a nesco dehydrator:


(look closely, these mushrooms are so insanely potent they dyed the dehydrator mat blue!) 

Immediately after drying I sealed the mushrooms in a glass mason jar purged of oxygen using argon gas before bringing to the lab for HPLC testing (reference for using inert gas for optimal storage).

Note: I bought a bunch of these "take out food" trays with lids that are so common to do small experimental grows and they worked so well I kind of fell in love with them.  The really cool thing about them is that both bottom and clear top pieces are made of polypropylene, same material mycobags are made of, you can put both parts right into a big pressure cooker to sterilize them which is a nice advantage (and you can probably fit 50 or more of them in a large pressure cooker all at one time).  A SINGLE little 16 oz jar of grain spawn was enough to spawn 7 of those little take out trays.  The advantage of having a lot of smaller trays is that if one or two contaminate you have plenty of backups.  You can clean and reuse them over and over again and the clear lids give you nice visibility.  You can lock down only the corners so there is a slight gap for air exchange during spawn run.  They seem to be the perfect depth for pan cyan and pan bisporus and you can get dense carpets of fruits from them:

But you can also grow in big plastic totes, this is actually a second flush, taken to full maturity for spore printing reasons:

I recently discovered a US vendor (SonoranSpores) selling both BVI syringes and BVI swab packs (potentially the most potent mushroom genetics, still awaiting more feedback on this vendor, let me know if you have used them).

QUESTION: Can you give me all of the exact settings for my greenhouse?

ANSWER: I don't think there is a one size fits all setup but I can give you some initial settings and you can tweak them from there.  For fruiting, you want a minimum temp in the greenhouse of 72F (22C) maximum of 85F (29C) (target the minimum in the Winter and no heating in the Summer).  Fresh air fan can be as little as 5 minutes per hour or as much as 30 minutes per hour, in the Winter for cold climate areas, the indoor air can sometimes be extremely dry and your heater may be kicking on a lot, this actually causes fresh air exchange all by itself and I have found that you can actually completely disable the fan (forced air) in conditions like that or cut it way back to 5 minutes every hour which is what I would recommend in the Winter, 10 minutes per hour should be fine in warm season growing conditions.  You can initially set your humidifier to come on for 10 minutes every hour.  In dry conditions you may need to increase your humidification time to something like 15-20 minutes every hour.  If your indoor air is extremely dry it may be a good idea to put a tote of water in the bottom of your greenhouse with a small aquarium heater in it, this will keep the air relatively humid at all times and the tote of water is actually kind of useful for catching/trapping spores keeping them out of your indoor space and air. Several people reported that they did not have success growing pan cyans until they added that tote of water with aquarium heater to their tent (in my area it is almost required during the winter months when the air is very dry).

I don't use a humidistat so you would want to play around with those settings but I would guess you could have it range between 80% and 100% RH.

A lot of the greenhouse settings depend on your local climate and the season you are in, etc.  I know people in Arizona and New Mexico have very arid climates and need WAY more humidification than I do most of the time.  I played around a lot with various settings and found that a WIDE range of settings worked for me.  I tried just unzipping the tent and not using an air exchange fan at all, that worked (for growing pan cyan), and I've tried 5 minutes of fan time per hour with tent only unzipped about 2 feet on one side, that also worked.  Humidity in the tent can drop to around 75 maybe just before the humidifier kicks on.  I also like to manually spray the casing layers with tap water when I check in on them (usually when I wake up in the morning and before going to bed at night), so that's another factor that will impact overall humidity levels.

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Links to all of my TEKs, Videos, Trip music, and frequently asked questions with answers can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/22774475 (everything is made available for FREE, I do not use pay walls, support the work only if you feel like you've benefited from it and you are able to do so).