Shiitake Revisited...

Time had passed it had been over a year with no development on the fungi front.  Enough time passed that the sting of failure wasn't going to be an issue, sure the inoculation process was a laborious one but that was over a year ago.  There were no signs of Shiitake mushrooms sprouting from my logs but I wasn't heartbroken. Not every backyard venture is going to prove fruitful.    

Then one day in August I happened to wander over to the dark corner of the yard where I had my stack of oak logs setting, sure enough there was progress.  It was plenty exciting to have two whole mushrooms sprouting from the one of the eleven logs I had mostly given up on. With the time, labor and money inputs, these mushrooms may have been the two most expensive ones I'd ever had a chance to eat.  

08/07/13

A month and a half later another cropping of the tasty mushroom appeared.  This time 11 mushrooms, not nearly the 'I shall have more mushrooms than I'll know what to do with', that I proclaimed in my first post on mushrooms. They found their way into my my next three meals: Egg Scrabble, Homemade Pasta Sauce, and Eggs with Fried Mushrooms and Onions. Finally this may have been enough mushrooms to write home about.

09/28/13

One last mushroom appeared two weeks ago, larger than my cereal bowl.  This one ended up being a two meal-er in it's self.

10/29/13

Since this was minimal input hobby, I half expected failure.  There are additional steps that can be taken to ensure a greater crop, some people even water their logs, I stacked them and left them lay.  The integrity of the logs is still intact, so it's my understanding I shall be reaping benefits of this project for years to come. 

Shiitake over the World

A man can never have too many hobbies..... especially when some of them are slow paced yet don't consume much time.  After discussions with an Arborist friend, the cultivation of mushrooms came up.  In theory all of the work is upfront and then you sit back and wait to collect the fungi.
It sounded so pleasant and simple.  Take and inoculate a few logs, place outside in the forest and 6 months to a year you begin gathering mushrooms. 
This is where it went an bit wrong, a few logs became 11 with a thousand 1" dowel pegs of Shiitake spores that needed to be drilled, pounded, and then sealed with wax into each of the four foot long red oak logs of 4"-7" in diameter.  All of this needed to be done in May, my busiest retail time at work...

Needless to say this simple additional yard hobby ended up being 5 1/2 hours of the most grueling 'off duty' time I have ever spent.  With gathering the logs and sealing all the fresh cuts with wax happening a week or two earlier, this was no simple free time activity.

Dowels come with swirls cut into them for the Shiitake spores to grow on.

After each log was drilled and inoculated the each had to be sealed with wax.

But I will be able to reap the benefits of this lonely time spent in the barn drilling 5/16" holes every six inches across and around my red oak logs.  Hopefully if everything went right, and there's no way to know until something happens, I shall have more mushrooms than I'll know what to do with. As of now they are just logs stacked in the backyard.

Logs of Shiitake mushrooms sit under the canopy of a Norway Maple.

  The patience game is what follows, and I that is one game I am good at.