[Carolinajim]

18 months ago I began a long term investment in learning how to grow mushrooms on logs.  Here is what I have done.

- selected oak, maple, sweet gum and other woods from my forest during timber stand improvement operations.

- cut the logs to 3 or 4 foot lengths or less for larger diameter logs.

- over the internet I purchased dowels which were inoculated with shiitake spores

- I set up a little operation to drill, insert the dowels and put hot parafin/cheese wax over the newly inserted dowels

- I gave logs to friends and family to determine if folks could take care of the logs well enough to see the production of mushrooms

What I found

- Patience is a virtue and in our .com society mushrooms logs don't fit well and are a great exercise in patience (works for some people and not for others).  I have had significant results after about 18 months.

- Logs need a shady but not dark dampish place to set.  The north side of a house or shed works very well as does an evergreen forest

- It works!  I enjoyed a meal with about 8 ounces of sauteed shiitakes just yesterday

Recommendation
- Cut or find some logs cut during the trees dormant fall/winter period

- Inoculate some logs

- Wait

- Enjoy the harvest

- The big benefit is that the logs will produce for between 3 to 5 years and a large log can be cut into 12 inch segments...each of which can produce mushrooms at least once per month

Here are a series of photos of one log which I inoculated long ago and which produced the mushrooms I ate yesterday.

Freshly inoculated.


18 months later


1 day later...to show missing mushroom and how fast the mushrooms grow.


 

[Rosemary]

Brilliant!

[bedrock]

That’s amazing Id  love to try that

[Carolinajim]

Just an update.  I've cut all my logs up into 15 to 36 " segments. 

I have harvested a few mushrooms since I last wrote ... the temperatures here have been in the 90's not ideal for shiitakes.  As I recall the ideal temperatures are somewhere between about 65 and 45 F.

I need to make a correction.  The logs should produce mushrooms about once every two months rather than once a month.

I now have 25 short logs.  If my calculations are correct in ideal conditions every 2 to 3 days I should be able to harvest shiitakes in ideal temperature conditions.

My next step is to integrate my little log collection with my cold frame greenhouse which will contain some rudimentary auquaponics.

I theorize that the north side of the barrels will be an ideal area for the mushroom logs.

The auquaponics barrels will just have gold fish this year...and/or maybe bream and mosquito fish, crayfish.  Since the barrels "sweat" considerably in a warm greenhouse they should help keep the moisture content of the logs at an appropriate level. 

I also plan to line the north side of my cold frame greenhouse with hay bales.  I plan to innoculate these with the oyster mushroom enfused canola oil that I used last year during firewood cutting...the left over oil has been sitting under a tree all year...so it will be interesting to see what happens.

I have a professor chasing me with a grade book concerning my website, in need of much work (the website not the professor), so with that encouragement plus that of folks like yourselves hopefully I will be able to produce a website page which portrays what I am doing in a manner which might be useful for others who wish to try the same sorts of concepts.

Finally, as I have said before, raising mushrooms on logs is an exercise in patience.  I started back in Mar 08.