The Spawn Box™

A Community Supported Mycoculture



2020 Spring Season

Subscription Window Closes: March 31
First Boxes Ship: Mid-April

Thanks for your interest in our Community Supported Mycoculture, The Spawn Box! We will reopen subscription options this winter.

 

The Spawn Box is our fungi-focused version of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model used by thousands of farmers around the world to directly market their goods to their community, and for community members to support their favorite farmers in return.

When you join this Community Supported Mycoculture (CSM) for a three-month seasonal membership (a “share”), you will be rewarded with a gift package mailed to you each month that includes a variety of items produced by MYCOLOGOS. Alongside ready-to-fruit mushroom kits* grown at our eco-friendly Fungi Farm in Portland, Oregon, each Spawn Box also includes a booklet on the month's species (covering its history, care, and applications around the home), as well as a rotating mix of other surprise goods designed by our team.

Such a unique means of learning about mushrooms and working with them directly with the help of a guided membership service is not offered anywhere else, making The Spawn Box the best way to easily get comfortable with all that mushrooms offer, month after month!

Spawn?


Our intention behind crafting this special offering is best summed up by its name. The word spawn is commonly used in mushroom cultivation to 1) indicate a material that is infused with mycelium (mushroom “roots”), and which is meant to kickstart the next step in the cultivation process, or 2) the act of applying that material during the next step. As a noun and a verb, “spawn” encapsulates all that mushroom growing entails – from the guided movement of mycelium from place to place, to having sound intentions of how one wishes to cultivate mushrooms in their life. Likewise, the name Spawn Box embodies our hopes to not only pass cherished lineages of mycelium to your hands and share the cultivation process with you, but to ultimately support the learning of more fungi advocates and encourage healthy growth in the world’s ever-expanding mycoculture.


*For more information about what our kits contain and how they are grown, see below.

Testimonials from
Spawn Box members


    Hands-down, the MYCOLOGOS Spawn Box is the best way to begin your acquaintance with the world of mushrooms for food and medicine. As a newly initiated mushroom enthusiast, I received my first box of ready-to-fruit mushrooms knowing nothing and with no experience. After seven months of growing these fantastic organisms, not only has my mushroom wisdom increased, but now I know I want to grow mushrooms for life! Each species you will grow becomes a new best friend!
    —Sean P., Santa Rosa, CA


    Abundant gratitude to the good folks at MYCOLOGOS for organizing this most informative program. I can say with confidence that I can now grow Pink Oysters, Lions Mane, Reishi, and Turkey Tail. For a guy who had zero prior knowledge, that’s big.
    —M.P.G., Ocean Gate, NJ


    As a beginner to mushroom growing, this was a great introduction. My boxes were filled with strong cultures, sweet merch, and great instructions. If I can do it you can too!
    —Ryan E., Groveland, CA


    Community Supported Mycology is a kitchen science experiment, an exercise in badass resilience, and a vibrant art installation, all in one project. It will definitely level up your cultivation skills, and provide you some delicious meals and powerful medicine along the way.
    —Day H., Madison, WI




How to Join
The Mycoculture



Spawn Box memberships come in two sizes. Full-sized Mycelial Shares™ include a large mushroom grow kit that is meant for fruiting in your home or office. These shares are offered in three variations: one for the friend of all fungi, one for the edible mushroom enthusiast, and one for the medicinal mushroom lover.

Spore Shares™ don't include an indoor mushroom grow kit, but other goods. For the Spring Season, we are offering two Spore Share types: one filled with an assortment of artworks and goods produced by MYCOLOGOS, and another that provides a small grow kit of an uncommon mushroom species each month.

Any combination of Mycelial and Spore Shares can be joined for the Spring Season, ensuring that you create a custom Spawn Box that best suits your interests in working with fungi!



Mycelial Shares

For Mycelial Shares, each month's Box includes the following:

  • A full-sized, ready-to-fruit mushroom grow kit cultivated with care at the MYCOLOGOS Fungi Farm in Portland, Oregon
  • An 8-page zine (booklet) on the month's mushroom, covering its history, care, recipes for making food or medicine, and post-harvest applications
  • 1–3 surprise gifts valued at $20 or more (e.g. medicinal mushroom products, artistic works, clothing items, educational materials, or cultivation supplies)
  • Special members-only discounts and contests for winning free MYCOLOGOS courses or goods
  • 2-day shipping and eco-friendly packaging materials


In addition, the first Box of the season includes a bonus starter kit of tools needed for fruiting your kits at home. This includes two perforated compostable plastic bags, a small spray bottle, and instructions for use.





MycoCurious

Curated for the mushroom lover who wants to experience a little bit of everything, The MycoCurious Membership™ brings a rotating mix of gourmet, medicinal, and exotic species to your doorstep each month. This share type is a great choice for the lover of all fungi, or for anyone new to mushroom growing or mycology in general as it provides a diversity of experiences during each Spawn Box season and throughout the year.

$177
($59 per month)

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MycoGourmand

For fungi-lovers most interested in the range of tastes and textures gourmet mushrooms offer, The MycoGourmand Membership™ is an ideal choice. In joining this share type, you will get to grow and savor the flavor of three choice edible mushroom species throughout the season. We've designed this share to ensure that each month provides a new taste or texture profile, helping you refine your palate for fungal flavors over the months.

$177
($59 per month)

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MycoMedicine

If you are most interested in the healing qualities of fungi, The MycoMedicine Membership™ will enable you to easily grow, harvest, and process a variety of potent medicinal mushrooms in your home or office. With each month's Box bringing a new medicinal species to your door, this share type is an excellent choice for beginner or experienced herbalists and alternative health practitioners seeking to cultivate a deeper relationship with medicinal mushrooms.

$177
($59 per month)

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Spore Shares


For Spore Shares, each of the following types offers a rotating mix of items that match the theme of the share. As with Mycelial Shares, Spore Shares can be signed up for on their own, or in combination with other Mycelial or Spore Share types.



MycoGoods

For the mycophile wanting to adorn their home or office with original fungi-inspired art, The MycoGoods Membership™ offers a unique mix of MYCOLOGOS wares and artworks. Most goods offered in this share type have yet to be released online, and all are designed by Peter McCoy. Items included in this share type will vary by month and over the seasons (for members who join for multiple Spawn Box seasons), and may include prints, posters, stickers, enamel pins, photographs, patches, housewares, or clothing accessories.

$57
($19 per month)

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MycoWizard

For the unconventional and radical mycologist, The MycoWizard Membership™ offers a small grow kit each month of an uncommon, ecologically-significant, or exotic mushroom species that is in need of more experimental cultivation research. Most species in this share type are intended for outdoor installations (e.g. in compost or wood chip piles, or in logs or stumps), making their yields less predictable than commonly cultivated indoor species. By joining this share type, you will be taking part in a collective effort to advance our understanding of how to best cultivate these species as members learn from each other’s successes. Join the citizen mycologist movement and help advance the leading edge of applied mycology by trialing these mushrooms around your home!

$57
($19 per month)

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Be sure to sign up soon as the registration window closes on March 31!




Spawn Box FAQs

Got a question about the CSM?
See our commonly asked questions below, or contact us directly to learn more.


The word “kit” is commonly used by mushroom growers to describe a bag containing material covered in mycelium and which is ready to produce mushrooms. The main ingredients in our grow kits are typically locally sourced hardwood sawdust and a mix of organic ingredients – though some kits may use straw or other ingredients if the mushroom requires them. For information about our farming philosophy, see further down this page.
Yes! You are welcome to join any combination of Mycelial Shares (which include mushroom grow kits) and Spore Shares (which do not include grow kits). Simply click the “Add to Basket” button below each share type you are interested in and follow the check out process to complete your membership enrollment.
If you sign up for more than one Mycelial Share type, $50 will be discounted from each share. So, if two shares are signed up for, $100 will be deducted from the total order. If you sign up for all three share types, $150 will be deducted from the total. Thus..

Two Mycelial Shares = $254 ($85 per month).
Three Mycelial Shares = $381 ($127 per month)

There is no discount for combining Mycelial and Spore Share types.
If you sign up for two Mycelial Shares, each Box will include two different grow kits, two zines (one for each species), and one package of the month’s surprise gifts. If you sign up for three Mycelial Shares, each Box will include three different grow kits, three zines (one for each species), and one package of the month’s surprise gifts (i.e. you will only receive one set of extra goods regardless of the number of Mycelial Shares you join).
The answer to that question is part of the Spawn Box surprise! To encourage the best experience with our CSM, we suggest awaiting the arrival of your monthly Boxes to find out the species we’ve curated to match the theme of your share type. This kind of surprise is common with many other subscription box services. If you really want to know the species we plan to send for a given share type, feel free to contact us!
For 2020, we will be offering two Spawn Box seasons. Spring season runs April to June, and the Autumn season runs from October to December. In 2021, a Winter season will also run from January to March.
As with the vegetable CSA model, we ask that our CSM members join for the full three-month season, so that we can best plan our production schedule and more readily invest in each season's supplies and infrastructure improvements.

To show our gratitude for your commitment to the CSM model, we in turn provide members with the unique experience, gifts, and discounts that are only available through the Spawn Box.
Most mushrooms can be grown anywhere in the world, so long as the air quality (i.e. carbon dioxide [CO2] and relative humidity levels) and ambient temperatures match the needs of the species. Many of the mushroom species provided in the Spawn Box will require a humid (80% or higher relative humidity) environment to produce large crops, as well as ambient temperatures that range from 65–80ºF (18–27ºC), depending on the species. In dry or hot environments, these humidity needs can be met by constructing a simple plastic chamber (instructions for which are provided to Spawn Box members), while the temperature needs of the mushrooms is best obtained through air conditioning systems, or by placing the grow kits in a cool area (such as a basement or root cellar).
Yes! There are no import restrictions on mushroom grow kits coming from the U.S., so you are welcome to join a Mycelial Share type. However, the shipping costs of sending these heavy grow kits to Canada will incur an additional fee of $149 for the three months.

Joining a Spore Share has the additional shipping cost of $59 for the three months.
Cultivating the grow kits in each Mycelial Share does require time, infrastructure, and training – which is why we do all of that hard work for you! When you receive your kits from us, all you need to do is open the kit and place it in a humid fruiting environment. Detailed instructions for this fruiting process are provided with each grow kit, ensuring that even beginner growers easily find success with their kits. So long as you properly prepare your fruiting space and follow the provided instructions, you will likely produce some amount of mushrooms.

The grow kits in the MycoWizard Spore Share contain experimental species that are not as certain to produce mushrooms, even if following the instructions provided with them.
Each grow kit will require around 1–5 minutes to open and prepare prior to being placed in a humid fruiting environment. Once there, the kits do not need to be watered or cared for daily, though the fruiting environment itself may need daily attention to ensure that the humidity levels are staying high enough. Depending on the design of your fruiting environment (different options will be provided when you sign up), this maintenance check will take 1–5 minutes each day.

Likewise, the design of your fruiting space will determine the amount of table space needed. Smaller fruiting environments are only around 1 foot by 2 feet, while larger designs (which can accommodate more kits at once) can be double or triple this size. More elaborate designs also incorporate multiple shelves, and so take up vertical space as well. Which design you choose will ultimately depend on your budget, your comfort level in building such environments, and your desire to care for one or many kits at a time.
The primary tools that are needed to supplement your kits are those needed to create a humid fruiting environment. If you are new to mushroom growing and aren’t sure if you want to invest in such tools, your first Box includes a bonus kit of basic tools for constructing a simple fruiting space at home. If you wish to build a more permanent fruiting space, instructions for constructing several types will be provided to Spawn Box members. The costs of constructing these spaces vary by design and range from approximately $20 for a manually monitored system, to over $200 for a fully automated design.
As with most other mushroom grow kit providers, all we are able to guarantee is that that kits we ship will arrive contamination free. We will provide detailed instructions for successfully fruiting the grow kits, which need to be followed closely to ensure a yield is obtained. However, if the light, oxygen, temperature, humidity, or environmental cleanliness needs for the mushroom are not provided for, a kit’s yield will be small. Because of this room for user error, we cannot guarantee a yield of any size for our grow kits. We are happy, though, to answer any questions our Spawn Box members have regarding designing and preparing their fruiting environment, so that their efforts are as successful as possible.

Further, if a grow kit arrives with signs of damage due to shipping problems or other issues, we will either ship a replacement of the same species, ship an alternate species, or issue a refund for the grow kit, based on the member’s preference and our available grow kit stock.
In joining our CSM you will be subscribing for the full three-month season up front. For most vegetable CSAs, this implies that members risk the chance that some supply boxes may be less abundant than others or that there may be unforeseen delays or shortages, as is reflective of the inherent risks that agriculture holds. For our CSM, we do guarantee that you will receive the number of grow kits promised in each Mycelial Share type. However, as the mushroom growing process is susceptible to its own risks of contamination, premature fruiting, or other unforeseen hurdles, there is a chance that some Boxes may be delayed by 2–6 weeks if a batch needs to be restarted. We will communicate any potential delays with share members as we become aware of them, and will work to ensure that the expectations we provide you are met or exceeded at every step of the way.

Similarly, due to the rate of mushroom growth and the pulses we work in as we cultivate the kits, some Boxes will go out at different times of the month. We estimate that most Boxes that contain a kit will ship around the middle of each month, though there may be a 1–2 week variation on this shipment window due to the timing logistics of mushroom farming processes.





Our Farming Philosophy


At MYCOLOGOS, we strive to create new paradigms for allying with fungi in all aspects of life. We believe that working with and enjoying the gifts of these incredible species should be accessible to everyone, and that as a part of that experience, edible and medicinal mushrooms should be of the highest quality. As such, all of our kits are made solely from organic, wild-crafted, or locally-sourced ingredients. This not only minimizes the environmental impact of our farm, but also ensures that the mushrooms you grow lack the toxic residues commonly found in modern agriculture and mushroom farming practices. Further, all of the grains used in our cultivation process are gluten-free, and we incorporate several trace mineral sources into our grow kits to ensure the mushrooms you grow are as anti-inflammatory and nutrient dense as possible.

The truism that food is medicine is best exemplified in the potent health benefits provided by the premier mushrooms the Spawn Box offers. With this in mind, each MYCOLOGOS grow kit is cultivated with care to ensure that every mushroom produced offers a maximum health benefit to you in its most potent and vital form.




Giving Back


We believe that the cooperation demonstrated in the Community Supported Mycoculture model is essential for the realization of a sustainable community of fungi advocates, growers, and allies – a mycoculture – now and long in to the future. By signing up for The Spawn Box you not only support the MYCOLOGOS Fungi Farm and increase our ability to share our passion for mycology, but you also help prove the viability of the CSM format to future mushroom farmers around the world.

In return, and to show our appreciation for all who join us on this mission, we are offering a scholarship for low-income individuals and families to receive a Spawn Box subscription free of charge. For every 15 people who sign up for Mycelial Shares, we will provide one to a qualifying scholarship applicant.


Apply Here



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