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later

I posted this tek a while back and have been using it now for several months with good results. The only difference is that I have gotten even lazier and the tek has gotten ridiculously simple.

After my cakes have flushed 3 or 4 times in the terrarium, I transfer them to unglazed clay pots.

I use straight composted manure with no vermiculite or anything else added. I put about 1" of manure on the bottom of the pot, drop the cake in whole, and cover it over with more manure.

I put the pots right next to my terrarium and water them when the pot is dry. At first you can water them like a plant, but when (if) the mycelium over runs the pot you will have to just put water in the saucer under the pot, since the mycellium wont absorb water that you dump directly on it.

I've tried this with fresh cakes with mostly bad results. Im experimenting now with letting the cake start pinning before burying it. We'll see how that goes. With flushed out cakes the results are quite good, usually another 3 flushes or more, and usually bigger fruits than the terrarium grows.

I'd like to hear results of anyone trying this tek so we can compare notes.

That mutant shroom in the first set of pics was UGLY as hell but also weighed like .9 oz wet. I think it got so weird from me over watering the pot while it was growing. The cap never developed properly and inside it was all mutated also, like it may have been actually 2 or 3 shrooms that fused under the soil level.

Great Work!

Lana

No. I just realized that last photo might be misleading. I leave them in their pots to fruit them. I just tipped that one over to get a picture of the mycellium under the surface.

Temperature? air huminity?

They're inside, so the temperature is around 70F or so and humidity around 60%. I Don't do anything to control the temperature or humidity, except keeping the house comfortable for myself.

does it smell?

Not at all.

manure compost- sterilzed?

Nope, I use it straight from the bag. You shouldnt ever try to sterilize manure anyway, it ruins it.

what manure? horse? cow?

Its composted cow manure, which I bought in the lawn and garden supply at wal-mart. It costs about $1.25 for a 50 pound bag. The only bad part is they dont sell a smaller bag.

Its not really straight manure - its blended with leaves and other organic material. It looks and smells like dark black potting soil. This is what is meant by "composted cow manure" and anything labeled that way should be more or less the same stuff.

What is they typical failure mode?

Teks for lazy people rock

[This message has been edited by Condi1 (edited January 16, 2000).]

Well, the "failure rate" is 100% over a long enough time. I have never failed to get a single flush out of a buried cake, but eventually the pot will be over-run with mold.

Usually this happens after 3 or 4 flushes. The contamination always starts in the center of the pot, with the actual buried cake. I think that when the cake is totally spent and the mycellium there starts to die, then mold moves in and starts eating the dead mycelium.

Sometimes your only hint is when the pot stops flushing. If it doesnt flush for a week I throw it out. The mold doesnt seem to eat the manure, only the mycellium. If the pot was well colonized, then you'll see mold on the surface, otherwise they go bad from the inside out.

Heres a perfect specimen to counter the "ragged" specimen I posted before. : )

The clay is nice because when you put water in the drip saucer the pot sucks it up like a sponge and makes a nice damp microenvironment around the soil...

I just tipped over a pot and stuck the colonized cake-thing in the terrarium. We'll se what happens. : )

I may look for some kind tops for these too. I've seen some plastic pot toppers for venus fly traps. Maybe could use something similar.

Of course every new ingredient takes away from the basic benefit which is the simplicity.

Some more questions:

How wet is the compost when you put it in the pots?

In general, how long does a pot last before its too overrun to use?

Can you estimate your dry yeild from a pot? I know thats difficult if you haven't been measuring it, mostly I'm curious if you are getting yeilds better than from the original cakes.

Have you considered allowing the pot to colonize, then cutting the bottom part containing the old cake off? If your hypothisis about the mold spreading from the old cake is correct, this might allow you to get more flushs from the same cake.

However, given that prior experimentation has show potency to drop off after about the 5th flush, this may not be benificial. On the other hand, I believe that data was based on rice cakes, and may not hold for the presumably richer compost substraight. Anyone have data on long yeilding, compost based substraights?

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Maverick shroomed@rediffmail.com
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"I've always been mad, I know I've been mad, like the most of us...
very hard to explain why you're mad, even if you're not mad..."