XXL MonoBox Grow Kit

We highly recommend working within a SAB (Still-Air Box), but at the very least, work in a small, very clean and draught-free room. Make sure you're freshly showered and in clean clothes, then thoroughly clean your hands and forearms with one of the hand wipes for 40-60 seconds, then fit your face mask and gloves.

Prepare your chosen gourmet mushroom spore or culture syringe by screwing on the sterile needle we've given you.

Carefully take your SpawnTub out of its packaging. It's now exposed to the open air and potential contaminants - this is where working within a SAB will greatly reduce your chances of suffering a contamination.

Use a 70% IPA / 2% Chlorhexidine wipe to clean the grey rubber injection port on the lid of the SpawnTub for 40-60 seconds, then pierce through it to inject 2-3ml of solution into the grain - do not go over this amount, as you don't want water pooling.
Never inject through the pink filters!

When you pierce the needle through, we recommend aiming it towards the edge and moving it slowly around the full circumference of the SpawnTub as you push down on the syringe plunger to add the solution, with a little in the middle.

Distributing it evenly like this will speed up the colonisation time. It also makes the mycelium growth easier to see, as it starts on the visible edge of the SpawnTub rather than hiding in the centre of the grain where you can't.

Now keep your SpawnTub somewhere clean and safe. Mycelium is living and needs to breathe, so don't ever store it in an airtight container - the filter strip in the lid provides the clean air exchange it needs. Put the bag it came in over the top of it - that will allow the mycelium to breathe at the same time as keeping it clean.

Temperature is extremely important for good colonisation. Too hot (above 26C) or too cold (below 18C) will very likely cause problems like contamination, or slow to no growth.

Aim for 23C (give or take a couple of degrees) if you can, and try to hold steady whatever temperature you're able to achieve - don't let it swing up and down too much.

Using a liquid culture, agar or grain-to-grain instead of spores? Aim for 26C - those are live mycelium, not spores.

Avoid heat mats, please! It's a very common mistake. They don't spread the warmth evenly, which can cause excessive condensation and water build-up - an easy pathway for contamination to enter your SpawnTub.

Consider building or buying an incubator if you're struggling to hold these temperatures - it's way cheaper than running your home heating constantly, and gives much better results.

At 23C (give or take a couple of degrees), it will generally take around 2-3 weeks for your SpawnTub to fully colonise - meaning the grains are completely covered in healthy, white mushroom mycelium. That said, it depends on a lot of factors, and nature can simply be unpredictable!

Even once it looks fully covered in mycelium, if you have the patience, give it an extra 3-7 days - this will almost guarantee full colonisation in the places you can't see.

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When you're confident you have full colonisation of the grain inside your SpawnTub, you can begin this step.

It's crucial that you don't open your SpawnTub before full colonisation, as you'll expose uncolonised grains to the open air and hugely risk contamination.

Your MycoWavable coir comes inside the MonoBox, and the MonoBox is microwavable, so it's all prepared right there in the tub. Pour 850ml of boiling water over the coir, then click the lid down, leaving one corner open so the steam can escape. Microwave it on full power for 10 minutes - this helps kill off as many nasties as possible, giving your mycelium the cleanest possible head start.

Once the 10 minutes are up, carefully take the MonoBox out - it will be very hot. Don't click the open corner of the lid down while it's hot, as the lid can warp. Instead, tear off a sheet of kitchen foil and wrap it over the top of the lid, then leave it to cool all the way down to room temperature. Don't rush this! If you mix the substrate with your colonised grain while it's still warm, you risk damaging the mycelium - remember, it's living. It's ready when the MonoBox feels cool to the touch, not just lukewarm.

Now check it's at 'field capacity' (you'll also hear it called field consistency). This is one of the most annoying terms in mushroom cultivation, but it just means the coir is holding as much water as it can, with none to spare. Take a handful and squeeze it hard: you want a few drops, or at most a short trickle that stops straight away. If water keeps running out, it's too wet. If nothing comes out and it feels crumbly, it's too dry. If you're not sure, go slightly on the dry side - a little too dry is much easier to put right than too wet, and too wet invites bacteria and stunted mushrooms. We have calculated our substrate mix to take 850ml of water, but if something goes wrong and it isn't enough or it seems too much, it's simple - to remove water just squeeze a handful at a time. Squeezed too much out? Well, pour a little back in - it's easy to get right.

Now you're ready for the next step, where you'll mix everything together.

When your substrate has cooled and is ready, first clean your hands and forearms - use your second hand wipe, or wash thoroughly with soap and water.

Remove any micropore tape from around the edge of your SpawnTub, then open the lid and tip the colonised grain straight into the MonoBox, on top of the substrate. It'll come out as a solid block that you'll need to break up - it can take a bit of force to get going, so be firm, but careful not to squish any grains.

Take your time breaking the spawn up into individual kernels and mixing them evenly through the substrate. Each kernel is an inoculation point, so the better you spread them, the faster and stronger your colonisation will be!

Once it's all well mixed, level it out in the MonoBox so the surface is flat and even, and push it down gently around the edges so it sits flush against the sides all the way round - that helps stop mushrooms growing down the sides. No need to press hard.

If your home is very dry, take a small handful of the coir out before you add the spawn, then once everything is mixed and levelled, sprinkle it thinly over the top (3-6mm) so no grains show - it helps keep the surface moist.

Secure the lid on the MonoBox and store it somewhere warm. Aim for 23C (give or take a couple of degrees) - getting the temperature right helps it grow through quickly. The coir itself is very hard to contaminate: what really decides your grow is clean, fully colonised spawn, which is why the earlier steps matter so much.

In the right conditions, full colonisation takes around 10 days. As before, once it looks fully colonised, if you have the patience, give it an extra 3-7 days - this will almost guarantee full colonisation in the places you can't see.

You should see condensation on the inside of the lid while it colonises - that's normal, and a good sign the coir has enough water. No condensation at all can mean it was made too dry.

When you're confident the substrate is fully colonised with strong, healthy mushroom mycelium, you're ready to begin fruiting. Don't fully open the MonoBox before then. You now have a colonised block, known as a 'cake'.

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Push in the bottom corners of the tent and fold in on itself up to the arrow line on the sticker. Put your arm inside the tent and push out the sides.

This creates a gusset in the tent, which allows a flat space in the bottom for sitting your MonoBox or cake on.

Take the lid off your MonoBox and store it away for another time. Then you can choose how you fruit:

• In the MonoBox: sit the MonoBox, with the cake still inside it, in the tent.

• As a big cake: tip the cake out of the MonoBox and sit it in the tent on a piece of tin foil, so it can fruit from its sides as well as the top.

Fold the top of the tent over, leaving a gap at one corner for top-FAE (Fresh Air Exchange), and tuck the piece of filter material we give you into that gap. It holds the gap open, helps keep the humidity in and keeps flies and dust out. There are some paper clips included to help keep it folded - but don't totally seal it off, mycelium needs air to breathe!

Maintaining a temperature of around 21C (give or take a couple of degrees) for this stage is crucial for best results.

Humidity and FAE (fresh air exchange) are extremely important for pinning and healthy mushroom development, as is temperature and light. They all need to work in harmony.

You are probably wondering how this kit gets the humidity your mushrooms need to fruit. Well, that's why we used coir. Coir stores a whole lot of water in it and that will be your humidity source - soon, you will see plenty of water build up inside your tent. The filtered gap at the corner of your tent allows for fresh air exchange.

Mist and fan: mist when the surface needs it, not by the clock. A healthy surface has fine beads of moisture on it; when they've gone and it starts to look dull or dry, open the tent, give the surface a fine mist of water (don't drench it), fan in some fresh air (a wave of your hand or a piece of card is plenty) and close it back up. Once pins appear, mist around them rather than straight onto them - water sitting on tiny pins can leave you with dented or blotchy caps. If you find yourself misting several times a day, the coir was probably made a little too dry - make it slightly wetter next time. After a dunk, wait at least 24 hours before you start misting again.

You don't need an electric fan - normal air movement in your home is enough. If the air in the room is very still, a fan on a low setting somewhere in the room (never pointed at the tent) can help, but it will dry things out faster.

Your mushrooms will need light to grow. Indirect sunlight is fine, but if you want to use grow lights - a 5000-6500K LED or fluorescent light a couple of feet away is recommended (it doesn't need to be pointed down from above, the light source can come from an angle).

If you notice the inside of your grow tent looking dry, there are a few things which can cause this. The fan is too close, or grow lights are too close and hot.

Observe what's happening and adjust your setup as required - fantastic results depend on it.

After around 3-7 days you'll begin to see lots of tiny white dots - these are hyphal knots which will develop into primordia, aka mushroom pins... the exciting part!

It should then only take 4-5 days for the pins to grow into fully mature mushrooms ready for harvest.

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During this time, they'll let you know if something isn't quite right - fuzzy mycelium at the base of the mushrooms and/or thin stems are an indication that more FAE is needed so increasing the fan speed or opening the corner gap a little wider might be something to try.

Very dark caps on short, stubby mushrooms usually mean the coir was made a little too wet - go slightly drier next time.

Don't worry about any mushrooms growing around the sides and bottom of the cake, you'll still be able to harvest them. If you want to give your mushrooms more room to grow next time (although the XXL Grow Tent should provide plenty of space!), use a fruiting chamber instead of a grow tent. Check out the photos on our CyLab product page for results when growing inside our CyLab fruiting chamber.

When the veil beneath one of your mushroom caps is about to tear off, this is when you should harvest your first flush. If you don't get there quick enough, spores will begin to drop from your mushroom caps and make a mess! It's best to cut the mushrooms off with a clean scalpel or knife, you can also just pull them off but be careful not to damage the substrate too much.

After you've harvested all the mushrooms from your first flush, you can use a method called 'dunking' to get more moisture into your substrate. Simply take your cake out (if it's still in the MonoBox) and place it into a pot of fresh water. It will float to the top so put a couple of plates on top to weigh it down, as you need it to be fully submerged in water at all times.

Put a lid on the pot to stop dust and flies getting in. Leave your cake submerged for anything between 6-24 hours.. depending on how much patience you have! But obviously, the longer you leave it, the better your results will be.

When you remove the cake from the water, give it a little rinse under the tap - it's been sitting in its own dirty bath water for up to 24 hours - and allow excess water to drain away before placing it back into your MonoBox, or back on its foil, in your grow tent.

You should continue to dunk your substrate after each flush.

You can also bottom water between dunks: once the next pins are in, pour a little water down the inside edge of the MonoBox so it soaks in from below - it helps later flushes.

If you've taken good care of it, you should achieve multiple flushes of mushrooms from your grow kit before the nutrients are all used up.

Thanks so much for ordering our grow kit. We hope you love using it and reap the rewards!

If there's anything you're still unsure about, get in touch through Messages in your account or the chat button at the bottom of any page. We're a friendly bunch!