We're beginners at this, but have a big source of oak wood. Have lots of questions. would love some help.
Do we have to cut the tree down to use live wood. or can we get the logs from the sawmill. They have alot of oak there that is small around say 7 to 8 inches around?
Where's your fave place to get the spore, and should we use plugs or do youthink we could use the sawdust spawn?
anyhelpful websites on how to prepare the logs.
I've been reading up on it, and know how far apart to drill the holes and how deep, we just want to raise some for us and to dehydrate if we have too many. This is not for resell purposes.
We love mushrooms and buy up to 2 pounds a week, and sometimes I buy l/2 pound of shiitake from the farmers market but it's 3.00 a l/4 pound so I don't do that that often.
any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Interested in making some shiitake mushroom logs
What kinds of wax to plug up the holes also? can one use candle or parafin wax?
I'm really excited about this project.
Thanks for the links, I guess we need to figure out the best time for us to start our logs, I think upon all the reading that 6 months down the road from when ever we start them is sufficient, I think from reading, that I should soak them after they have been stacked for a while, should soak them in the end of april or beginning of may when the humidity is higher.
Does that sound about right? humidity is highest in april or may when it's raining around here.
Does anybody else grow their own shiitake logs.
Thanks for the links,
Wow, I really thought there's be more people here on daves that grew their own mushrooms and I could find alot of help here. Guess not.
we've rigged up a bath tub to soak city water in to clear out the chlorine to soak the logs in, we're about to innoculate our prepared logs any day now, and will be setting them up for the winter storage on an a frame style storage.
Sure wish there were other mushroom growers here to talk with and see their photos.
Hello Kathy,
Are you still with us, and still growing mushrooms? Anything new to report?
I'll gladly chat with you, though we are only now getting into mushrooms to any
extent other than loving them, photographing them, etc.
Just ordered our plugs today, and will be diving into research about which
logs, what kind, etc. this evening if the internet will cooperate.
A friend of the fungi,
Karen
Nothing yet, logs were huge, I guess it's taking longer cause we cut large logs, not small ones, takes longer for the fungi to consume the logs, we didn't keep them wet enough either, we're soaking them every two weeks now, but still nothing yet. I hope they come through for us. I would hate that we did all that work for nothing.
I do not have much to share yet, I plugged my first log for Shitake several months ago and it is hanging out on a bed of clean sand under my deck. Something is happening because when I lifted the log, there was a mass of mycelium in the sand against the log.
I'll let you know if it works!
well, we plugged ours last end of august, and soak them every two weeks, and nothing yet, I'm beginning to thnk we got ripped off on the spore plugs. the logs are big around but it's been long enough I think, but not quitting on them yet, just won't plug any more new ones till we see results wtih these l0 huge logs. let's see if i can find a pic of them.
Just plugged our logs last weekend and things are looking good. Hubby sealed them
with wax and he's excited because we have growth, or some kind of movement at least. :-)
Image is of our Shiitake plug spawn from Fungi Perfecti.
http://www.fungi.com/plugs/index.html
We got ours here http://everythingmushrooms.com/shop/Shiitake-Mushroom-Plug-Spawn-Lentinula-edodes.html
what kind of growth is he seeing. your seeing growth so soon after plugging them? boy I must be doing something wrong. ARGH!!!