Does anybody grow their own mushrooms for home use?

Looks like you got a lot of eating iron dehydrating to do!

Wonder if you inoculated the logs over a slightly spread out time period (maybe say 1-2 months, if that would spread out the fruiting period? Or if they would still "bunch up" cause of growing conditions?

 

That would probably work to stagger the mushrooms fruiting. I think an issue would be having fresh wood to inoculate with the spores staggered. Not the largest hurdle but may be for some.

The logs could also be controlled by placing the logs in a dry environment. That might be hard on the logs though, no idea.


I will be dehydrating a lot of these no doubt. There is only so many mushrooms a household can eat. We had venison backstrap and asparagus with shiitake mushrooms on the grill last week.

 

It rain last weekend, most of these are ready to pick. I've dehydrated most of the mushrooms and they re hydrate well. You wouldn't know they were dried out.

The shiitake grow better with warm weather, they dry out and take constant attention in the heat. Less bugs trying to eat them as well.

 

That looks like a lot of shrooms!

 

Things of beauty! Wish I had some inoculated logs here.

 

Its more than I can eat before they go bad. Going to grill some this weekend.

If you don't have the right logs for it you can try a fruiting block.

Organic Shiitake Mushroom Grow Kit Fruiting Block

 

I'm not sure if I've ever had shiitake.... Do they have a strong flavor? I've had button, crimini and portabello from the store/restaurant, and wild oyster. Was there a specific reason you chose shiitake to grow?

I looked back at the previous page. Are these the same mushrooms in the pic from August 12th, or is this a different batch, that's finally ready due to the rain?

 

Shiitake have a strong flavor.

I really never ate a lot of shiitake mushrooms fresh, they are pricey, at Kroger they re 13 dollars a pound. That is with the stem on. Our friend had us over for dinner and had this salad dressing, its really good. I like mushrooms and figured I try shiitake.





I saw this thread and had a red oak about to come down and I ordered the innoculant dowels, that's what started it. Kinda like my firewood "collecting."

Different mushrooms, same logs. They fruit multiple times a year when the conditions are right. Having the logs near the house is crucial, if they aren't checked they will fruit and go bad if not picked soon enough.

 

So it's seems like you've gotten quite lot of mushrooms off those logs. Can you do anything with the stems, or are they too tough and just toss them? Maybe soak for medicinal? I'll have to look up shiitake's properties....

 

Soup stock can be made with the stems. The shiitake stems are fibrous and tough, the flavor is fine but the texture is not so good.

 

Picked the last of the shiitake today. Total of 3 containers.






The two dehydrators are humming away. The mushrooms should be dry by tomorrow morning.



Here is an example of the fibrous stem.

 

Looks great, my friend

 

Outdoor Log Kits

Kits on sale

 

It seems us woodcutters have a lot of other hobbies in common. I went to my first log inoculation workshop at a local farm about 12 years ago and we've been hosting log inoculation parties of our own every few years. Now that we have our own land and more access to cutting fresh hardwoods, we will probably do it every winter going forward.

It's just so easy to do, it's a lot of repetitive work up front but after that I like how it's pretty much maintenance free. Still have shiitakes fruiting on logs from nearly 8 years ago at my moms place. I'm happy to get 3-4 years out of them.

This past February we did shiitake, lions mane, reishi and oyster. It was the first time trying the totem method in bags. Set them outside after six months and some of them are fruiting lions mane already. I've never noticed our logs fruiting until the following year, but our shiitakes on logs are fruiting already as well.

 

Interesting method.
Welcome to the club, lots of great folks here sharing knowledge and humor. Where in GA are you located? We're in the middle part, between Milledgeville and Sandersville.

 

Super important that the inoculated logs are by the house and not out in the back 40 so to speak. My wife caught these growing today. I really hadn’t thought about them with the cold nights. She got out the watering can and they look thirsty.

 

Thanks. We're in Madison county, it's near Athens. The only mushroom we're confident wild foraging are chanterelles. Growing from store bought spores is always experiment no matter how many times we do it. Sometimes they'll take other times not so much.. as with gardening we make note of what we did and try to learn from it next time. Now my wife is saying this morning she saw something else looks like is colonizing our smaller lions mane logs. Hmm.

I like eating those little button sized shiitakes fresh off the log! My wife says lately the shiitakes take too long to cook and still seem tough even after cooking, so she wants to move away from growing them. Seems oysters cook quicker I guess? We're going to have a lot of shiitakes so better find a use for them.

 

Do ya'll cut/heat with wood? It would be nice to with you sometime. Maybe even wood...
I've been thru your county several times. I have a brother that lives near Toccoa.

 

Right on, that would be sweet. My mom lives in Franklin county so I often go back and forth between here and Toccoa area. I glanced at something on the front page here about a club get-together- do y'all have like an annual meetup wood hoarders convention potluck type hangout maybe with some wood cutting involved? That would be awesome. My wife makes a really good tom kha phak soup with lions mane mushrooms.