Interested in growing your own mushrooms, but intimidated by the thought of inoculation? Whether you're growing for non-intoxicating supplements, cooking ingredients or a trip to another dimension, Spore Light's monthly mushroom meetups are an easy place to learn about the process of home mushroom cultivation. Each free meetup, typically held at a brewery, teaches attendees how to make agar petri dishes, set up grain bags, and harvest mushrooms; at a mini-mushroom market at the end, you can buy spores, grain bags, cultures and grow kits to take home. And even if you decide that homegrown mushrooms aren't for you, beer is always an option.

You may not recognize the name Growlytics, but the Denver cannabis cultivation has been raking in awards, and owner John Dean is finally ready to spread the word. Since Dean hired head grower Edriss Floyd in 2020, Growlytics has won six awards in potency and terpene content in the Grow-Off, even setting a Colorado terpene record in 2021. Embracing data analysis and conducting constant LED lighting experiments, Floyd and his one-person growing staff are on the cutting edge of cannabis, with particularly impressive versions of Spritzer and Wookie Monster. Growlytics products are currently sold in around forty dispensaries, and that could increase soon — but Floyd won't change his focus. "For a while, it was who can grow the most, not who is growing the best," he says. "For me and John, though, it can always be better."