This past year we researched growing mushrooms. We saw some excellent techniques for growing Shitake on logs. Much of our yard is shady and moist including a part fenced in garden area to the south of the barn. One of the best wood species for Shitake is Red Oak and we were dropping 2 trees over the winter. Seems like we have a good environment to add shrooms to the garden mix so we you-tubed it up a bit and ordered some mycelium plug spawn.
We also got a bag of Hen-Of-The-Woods mycelium spawn plugs and will try that species as well since we love that mushroom varietal. They are trickier to grow and prefer a softwood specie stump partly buried. We’ll get that going soon.
We cut the Red Oak logs into 4’ lengths and back in at the end of April when it was warm enough we drilled out the logs, tapped in the plugs, sealed up the plug holes with wax and piled em' up to do their thing.
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| pluggin away |
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| logs drilled, plugged and waxed |
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| heating up the wax |
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| log cabin stack ...now we just have to wait |
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if these shelf fungi can grown on a stump nearby on a oak tree we downed for the garden then we should be able to get Shitaki
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| meanwhile in May ...4 new layers are growing |
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| May and things are beginning to pop like this Kale |
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| meat chickens came aboard Memorial Day weekend and are fattening nicely into June |
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| Mountain Laurel, the Connecticut State Flower, has been particularly lush this year |
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| looking good into June |
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The inoculated logs are in a good spot - check out these ferns
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We should get some fruiting heads this fall and then the logs will produce for about 7 years throwing mushrooms after any good wet period. We can also force the logs by hosing them down good.
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| our operation is a little smaller than this... |
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| ...but hopefully we should get enough of these... |
Stay tuned for Part II where we get a first harvest and then comes the mushroom omelets and pizza.
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