From March 22nd to May 3rd, I gave myself a challenge to start growing Lion's Mane mushrooms from scratch, and to end up with fruiting bodies by the end of the 6 weeks. I'm glad to say it was a success, though with a few hiccups throughout the period.
On March 22nd, I sterilized 3 grain jars and the next day injected them with 2.5ml of Lion's Mane culture.
By April 4th, the grain jars were colonized and ready to be mixed into substrate, so I prepared and sterilized grow blocks.
By this time, however, I started to get sick, and didn't want to touch the process until I felt better, so by April 9th, I mixed the grain jars into the grow blocks.
Over 2 weeks, the grow blocks were colonized, and by April 23rd, I cut open the grow blocks and set them into fruiting conditions in a humidity tent.
By May 1st, the Lion's Mane fruiting bodies began to emerge from the bag! And by May 3rd, the end of the challenge, they were only one day from harvesting.
Today, May 4th, I am going to harvest them and extract them to make more Lion's Mane Capsouls.
This is a great success, and probably the fastest I've ever grown Lion's Mane from scratch! I think that I can optimize times even better and get it down to 5 weeks, especially since I got delayed a few times while being sick.
I'll be coming out with a few videos and photos that tracked the process. But for now it's easiest just to write about the timeline. I'm happy that my estimates were semi-accurate, which you can see attached as images.