Growing Shiitake Mushrooms

So now you know.  And even though the HUGE majority of you guessed bees, that majority wasn't actually wrong.  Bees have been something we've been dreaming about for a few years now.  Jamey is currently in the process of building a hive just in case he hears about a swarm that needs a home.  We're hoping that in the next year or so, we'll get ourselves some bees.

 He's building a top bar hive.  Here are the top bars ready to go.

In the meantime, we decided to try our hand at shiitake mushrooms.  The inoculation or spawning of mushrooms is fairly simple, cheap, and takes a minimal time commitment.  Plus, we have a friend who has had great success with mushrooms who is coaching us along.  It seems like the perfect project for us right now when life feels very full but we're eager for a new adventure (of sorts).

 The spawn arrived in the mail and we kept them in the fridge until we were ready for them (just a couple days).

It helps that we love eating mushrooms, too, but rarely buy them because they are expensive.  We're not used to buying a lot of produce, so we get sticker shock when we see those prices. Hats off to those of you who are able to stay within your food budgets without growing a lot of your food!

Now, please understand that we have not been successful with mushrooms YET.  I'm just going to show you what we're doing and you can sit back and watch us and see if we succeed or flop.  Then you can decide if you'd like to follow suit.  I'll post our progress and label these posts so you can easily pull them up and see how we're doing.  For now, I'm just going to give you a very simple explanation of the process and show you what we've done so far.

To start the process of growing shiitake mushrooms, you need to introduce the shiitake fungus to logs (where the mushrooms will grow and be harvested from).  Spawn is the plant body of the fungus that is 'planted' in the logs.  Introducing the two is called inoculation or spawning.

That's the most complicated part of it all right there, so if you can wrap your head around that, you're good to go.

We chose to use "thimbles".  These are thimble-shaped pellets of spawn mixed in sawdust and capped with a thin white foam cap (seen above). 

The spawn must be planted in hardwood logs such as white oak (the favorite choice), other kinds of oak, sugar maple, sweet or black gum, or ironwood.  The kind folks (in the next state over) that we ordered our spawn from said chestnut was fine as well.  We asked because we have a chestnut tree we could easily cut from.

The logs need to be recently cut from healthy, disease-free trees.  You should not use deadfall or damaged trees.  Your logs should be 3 to 4 feet long and 3 to 5 inches in diameter.  Depending on where you live, there are certain times of year that are better than others for cutting, so find out what timing is best for your area if you want to give this a try as well.

Once you have your logs, drill holes into the logs to the specification of your thimbles.  Our order came with precise instructions on the size drill bit, depth of the holes, as well as the desired distance between the holes. Once the holes are ready, insert the thimbles and tap in place.  I found that a phillips head screwdriver was super handy for digging the sawdust out of the drilled holes and then using the handle to pound the thimbles in tightly.

Next, cover the holes with melted beeswax (which smelled divine, by the way).  This keeps the spawn from drying out and keeps organisms from getting in.  Our friend advised us to also put beeswax on the ends of the logs.

Next, we leaned the logs against the side of a shed in the shade.  Now, we wait for a sign that it's time to carry out the last step.  We are to watch for white, fuzzy patches that turn brown around the edges to appear on the ends of the logs OR wait for a period of about a year.

Our friend who grows them locally says she usually only has to wait a few months for the white patches to appear.  At that point, we're to simulate a rapid drop in temperate and a hard rain by submerging the warm (from the weather) logs into cold water for 24 hours.  Then, they are to be set back up in their place and mushrooms should emerge in a few days.  They should be ready to pick 4-6 days later when they are about 70% open (regardless of size).  Once picked, the logs can be induced to produce additional crops by giving them a rest period and then a re-dunking.

We ordered 150 thimbles which we "planted" in 8 logs.  The cost with shipping?  Fifteen dollars ($15) even.  Worth the risk?  I think so:-).

How many mushrooms could we get?  The instructions that came with our spawn say, "Depending on the diameter of the log, up to a dozen crops may be induced every 6-8 weeks during warm weather, over 3 or 4 years."  A dozen crops?  If it works that well for us (or even partially so), you bet I'll be experimenting with different ways to preserve them.

But what I can't wait for is to eat them- sauteed, in stir-frys, raw in salads, on pizza, grilled...however we please.

Let's just hope we have as much luck growing fungi as we do dandelions.  Well.  Maybe not quite that much luck. Pin It