Mushroom Gardening?

[applestar]

Yesterday --



...it was 30°F this morning and they hadn't grown much. Now it's pouring outside. Hopefully these will be able to grow to be a lovely harvest.

[rainbowgardener]

Beautiful! Something I still haven't tried yet. Every time I see your posts about it, I think "I should try that."

[applestar]

Thanks @rainbowgardener -- it's alot of *yummy* fun.

...With your (new) location, I would check this place out --

How Mushroom Mountain Got Started | Mushroom Mountain
http://mushroommountain.com/about

I'm not sure if the strains they grow would be suited to my climate since I need them to survive the winters here, but it's been on my list of likely sources. And like most of the ones that I like, they encourage organic concept, myco remediation, and offer workshops to boot.

[applestar]

It rained -- a lot -- in the last couple of days. These look waterlogged but hopefully will be OK.



There was a very opened cap growing under one of the logs, and I knocked off a button while trying to extract it.

[applestar]

The shiitake still looked a bit soggy this morning, but by lunchtime, they were starting to open up, so I harvested some



I separated the logs and lifted one up crosswise afterwards so they will gave room to stretch out more

[applestar]

Do you believe in luck, karma, fate... ? I decided to give today's shiitake harvest to my mom and ran them over to her house -- and noticed along the way that there was a house where someone had started to take down a tree and had some nice looking logs and trunk rounds out on the curb. After delivering the freshly harvested shiitake -- my mom was delighted -- I slowed down at the house on the way home and saw that a man had come out and was working on moving more logs and rounds out to the curb. I rolled down the window and asked him if he was getting rid of them and what kind of tree it was, and he said MAPLE, and they were freshly cut. Oooh.

When I asked if I could have some, he readily agreed, and when I turned around and got out by his pile of wood, pulled on a pair of gardening gloves and, taking a deep breath, prepared to load them in my SUV... he very generously got them all loaded for me, even checking them over and rejecting ones that he said were not very good.

When I got home and shifted them, I realized --- these are VERY HEAVY. I silently thanked the guy once again. I'm going to need some help unloading these and moving them to the back yard. I think I'll wait until day after tomorrow (It's supposed to POUR tomorrow).

[applestar]

Yep more shiitake today. I went out in the morning before the storm system reached us and harvested this much. Also moved the logs around -- hopefully this way they can grow without getting squeezed and smushed, and as long as it doesn't freeze, it's better for them to get some air flow while we are having wet weather.


...I was intrigued to see a cluster of shiitake growing on one of the support logs (not intentionally inoculated -- can't remember if this is even an oak ...it might be a plum branch....)

[applestar]

I was bummed to see these -- some kind of shelf fungi -- growing on two of my shiitake logs.

I don't know if the shiitake on those logs were spent, or if they were tired from all those flushes and, in their moment of vulnerability, were invaded.