Frequently Asked Questions

We know that as soon as the words ‘mushroom hobby’ are mentioned to almost anyone, their minds don’t go to Pink Oyster, Chicken of the Woods, or King Stropharia…

They go to magic mushrooms! The story of our lives…

To save the annoyance of dealing with bad assumptions and even worse jokes, we’ll ensure boring packaging that’s securely packaged.

Yes, shipping options should be available at checkout.

A surprising number of customers enter their delivery address incorrectly at checkout. If your order has not yet been dispatched, we can change the address details for you. However, if you’ve already received dispatch notification, there is nothing we can do. We will have to wait until your order is returned to us by the courier, and we will then give you the option to pay delivery costs again to have your order re-sent to you. If your order is not returned to us by the courier (very rare) and is lost, we cannot offer a free replacement order or refund. So, please double-check your address when placing an order!

If you miss the delivery of your order, the courier will return it to us (but this is not guaranteed). Royal Mail will return the order to your local depot, and it will be available for you to re-arrange delivery or collect for 30 days. When/if we receive your order back from the courier, we will contact you to arrange for you to pay the delivery costs again, and we can then re-send your order.

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We advise that spores can be kept for around 2 years to ensure viability. Although, there are lots of reports online of them being stored longer than this and still being active! Some advice is to store spore solutions refrigerated, but there is absolutely no harm in storing them at room temperature, and this is how we have always stored our spores. It’s important to keep spores out of direct light, such as a dark drawer.

We would always advise that you use a grow kit as soon as you possibly can. Moisture has been added to the substrates to support mycelium growth, and naturally, this moisture will gradually be lost. If you leave it too long before inoculation, there won’t be an adequate amount of moisture to support the mycelium, and you’ll risk very slow colonisation to no colonisation at all. The storage times do vary between substrate types, and we have had success from substrates inoculated months after sterilisation, but that is not always the case. If you experience issues with slow/stalled colonisation and you have had your substrate sitting around for weeks upon weeks, it’s likely to be a cause. Please, just get them inoculated quickly!

Do not add any more gourmet solution to substrates than what our guides tell you to. Adding too much moisture into a substrate will increase your chances of contamination… and nobody wants that.

No! Using a heat mat introduces a higher risk of contamination. The warmth provided from a heat mat is not spread equally enough throughout your substrate – the heat is coming from the bottom, whilst the top of your substrate remains at a colder temperature. This produces a lot of condensation and therefore results in excess moisture build-up, which creates an easy pathway for contamination to enter your substrate. It’s really not worth it. We have an incubator in our Equipment section that will do the job for you.

We often get asked what the ‘stickers’ are on the lids of substrate products – these are in fact specially developed filters which are heat-sealed to the lids and work to provide essential clean air exchange to your colonising substrate within. They should never be removed!

Of course, refer to our Replacements, Refunds and Returns page for more information or Terms and Conditions page for in-depth information.

If you would like to pay using a different method than what you selected, you will need to place a new order and select your preferred option at checkout. Different instructions are emailed to you for each payment option, and for some payment methods, the payment process is completed dynamically during checkout, so it really is best just to place a new order to make things much quicker and easier!

Our business is classed as ‘High Risk’ to payment processors. For an amazing explanation of what that is and why we (and our competitors) are snookered in using ‘normal’ payment methods, check out this depressingly informative blog post made by a fintech expert who understands the system better than pretty much anyone, why it’s unfair and why even companies as huge as Steam are in the same boat:

Payment Processor Fun: Making your own MSP

We pronouce it SY-loh-SYB. Our name is inspired by the woodland mushroom genus Cyclocybe.

We’re from bonnie Scotland, in the United Kingdom.