Shiitake mushroom logs

We're on our second attempt at growing our own shiitake mushrooms on logs.  We got aged oak logs from a nearby farm, drilled about 40 holes per log and filled them with the shiitake mushroom plugs we had bought from the "Fun Guy" near Stouffville.  There are a few important elements about growing edible mushrooms on logs - the logs must be about 2 years old (not too freshly cut, but not aged so long so they are dried out); the logs should preferably be hardwood; the logs need to have the bark intact (to protect the spores from possible contamination caused by too much water seeping into the log); the logs need to be moistened after filling with the spore plugs (not misted too lightly, and also not soaked too long - a little tricky to figure out exactly); and they need to be stored in full shade set upright propped against a fence.  After all that, it should be fairly easy to grown mushrooms - well, we'll see.  On our last batch we had one pretty successful crop of mushrooms but then the logs seemed to dry up, and we later learned the logs may have been too old.  We were told we should get several crops of mushrooms from this set.  Another foray into producing our own food on 1/3 acre here in the city...

Bloodroot blossoms end, red trilliums open, fruit trees, berries, rain & rubber boots...

We've been making the most of our woodland (shady) areas of the yard - of which we have quite a bit. It's the perfect habitat for native plants, woodland flowers (we are so fortunate to have the red trillium and bloodroot grace us as a harbinger of spring each year), wild rose, wild leeks, wild ginger, trout lilies, day lilies, and our shiitake mushroom logs - and we learn a little more about woodland gardening each year. Mainly it takes care of itself, as nature does.

Planted out the willow, red dogwood, and forsythia which I've been rooting in jars of water in our house. I hope these plants will take to the soil, and have visions of slowly establishing a small tree nursery here in future (still have a large jar of acorns, walnuts, hazelnuts and heartnuts in our fridge). I've ordered a Chicago Fig tree from Richters, which should be arriving any week, and this will be added to our growing nut/fruit orchard dispersed throughout our property - the pears, plum, apples, and cherries are all blossoming now, and the hazelnut is budding, small though it still is. I love the idea of leaving this property filled with food sources for future owners. We also have the red & black currents, gooseberries, blueberries, raspberries, grapes, strawberries (more Alpine strawberries coming shortly for the front yard), and I'm looking for a good source of elderberries.

Final Shiitake Mushroom Harvest

We had forgotten about our mushroom logs and thought they were done fruiting for the season. Looked at them in passing the other day, and couldn't believe our eyes - the size of those mushrooms was incredible! Never seen shiitakes so huge. They photos don't do them justice - that's a Tablespoon and the largest kitchen knife we have. This one mushroom could have fed a family for a week (but we indulged and finished them in two delectable meals). Well, we did a little more reading about the logs and realized that the mushroom harvest is actually best done in the fall, so we'd been harvesting too early all along. Just imagine the quantity of mushrooms we could have had if we had waited. They were so delicate in texture, so delicious just falling off the fork after they had been marinated with a little tamari and garlic, and then lightly fried in olive oil. Oohh, can't wait to see the next years harvest (we'll wait for fall next time!).

Growing Shiitakes - our woodland mushroom garden

Recently took a drive up near Stouffville to visit the farm of Bruno, "The Fun Guy" (fungi), who sells innocualted mushroom logs. We have been wanting to add fresh home-grown mushrooms to our roster of locally produced garden harvest, and were very happy to find a supplier of these logs within about an hour of where we live! Back in March we placed our order for 5 shiitake logs (he also has oyster logs, kombucha, etc), and now in May they were ready to be picked up.

After a little searching up and down the back roads, we finally found the right farm and drove in a long laneway lined with endless rows of oak logs stacked upright neatly along wire fences. The forest was also covered with white trilliums, fiddleheads, wild leeks and the scent was fresh, damp, earthy and wonderful.

Bruno sells his mushrooms at various farmers markets in the Toronto area, leads workshops on mushroom cultivation, does consulting for those wanting to start a mushroom business, and is planning to install a commercial kitchen in his greenhouse in order to produce value-added mushroom products. He gave us a detailed tour, explaining how the logs are innoculated by hand with plugs, need to be kept moist but not too wet, and how to harvest. Then we walked over to our section of logs and got the first taste - delicious! Delicate, almost sweet, like no other shiitake we've eaten before. We decided to take not only our 5 logs, but a few more to pass on to friends, as at $20/log (which will hopefully bear mushrooms for 3-5 years) this opportunity was not to be missed.

Our mushroom log collection is now neatly stacked behind our greenhouse, with just enough shade, a little access to rain, and close at hand to make observation and harvesting easy. In the photo, the white dots are the plugs out of which mushrooms will sprout (and log on far left has shiitakes growing ready for harvest).

For more details see Bruno's website at: www.mycosource.com