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Small farm buildout

Tj Jefferson

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Location: Virginia USDA 7a/b

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posted 5 years ago

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Mostly pictures. I’ve been bad but I have been busy.

Carbon-hoarding.jpeg

Fertilizer-and-fuel-(for-me).jpeg

Mobile-coop.jpeg

Clearing-sweetgum-making-mushrooms.jpeg

Shiitake.jpeg

Oysters.jpeg

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Tj Jefferson

pollinator

Posts: 1345

Location: Virginia USDA 7a/b

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posted 5 years ago

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More pictures sorry slow internet. Will try to add text but I’m only able to upload from my phone

Cold-oysters.jpeg

Stropharia.jpeg

Breaking-stuff-having-to-fix-all-manner-of-things.jpeg

Beater-truck-brake-issues-proportionality-valve(-didn-t-know-what-that-was-a-couple-weeks-ago).jpeg

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Tj Jefferson

pollinator

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Location: Virginia USDA 7a/b

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posted 5 years ago

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Clearing mostly done spread about 300 yards of chips and subsoiled them down 18-24” on key lines

4507BA92-7999-49F7-9C73-04DA742AEBA6.jpeg

Different-raised-bed-experiments-with-mushroom-logs-as-walls.jpeg

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Dennis Bangham

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Posts: 926

Location: Huntsville Alabama (North Alabama), Zone 7B

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posted 4 years ago

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Tj, With the chips deep in the soil it will reduce the nitrogen. Are you going to leave this field fallow for a couple years?

Other people may reject you but if you lie in the forest floor for long enough the moss and fungi will accept you as one of their own!

Tj Jefferson

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Location: Virginia USDA 7a/b

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posted 4 years ago

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Not at all. Seeded with Sesbania and gamagrass. I’m planning on “grazing “ sheep and chic on it and something will grow based on Greg Judy and Joel Salatin. If I have to feen hay year one it’s ok!

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Tj Jefferson

pollinator

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Location: Virginia USDA 7a/b

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posted 4 years ago

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Have done 180’ of mushroom logs so far a few hours at a time. Need 300’ for this garden. I’m exhausted but hopefully will get it done next two weekends.

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wayne fajkus

gardener

Posts: 3073

Location: Central Texas zone 8a

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posted 4 years ago

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Tj, do you have a thread with more details on the chicken coop? Looks like rain water collection and some other goodies on it. I'd love to see more detail!

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S. Bard

pollinator

Posts: 278

Location: Italian Alps, Zone 8

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posted 4 years ago

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Tj posted a wonderful description of his chicken coop on one of my threads here: https://permies.com/t/135321/seed-existing-pasture-uprooting-soil
I for one, would love to hear more about your mushroom logs, TJ! Am I right the assume that the black spots on the bark of the tree is where you cut down the bark a bit to add the spores to it?
What kind of logs are you using (type of tree and how old)? And at what period in the year do you add the spores?

Tj Jefferson

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Location: Virginia USDA 7a/b

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Sorry been working away from home. Yes the black spots are wax from the spawning. I no longer use sawdust or grain spawn if I don’t have to, dowels are so much faster and the birds were digging out the sawdust and grain and ruining the logs.

I’m going to get a coop video tomorrow and post to YouTube with a link. The chix are literally in the front yard. The coop goes everywhere. They are in an area that had some infestation with cocoon worms and the chix will hopefully decrease the problem.

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Eric Hanson

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Location: Southern Illinois

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posted 4 years ago

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TJ,

When you really get serious with woodchips and mushrooms, you really get serious with woodchips and mushrooms!

I am curious, why bother key lining in the woodchips (which look amazing btw) in the first place. When I have just plopped chips (a LOT less than you) onto the ground, within a year I cannot find where the chips end and soil begin—and I have some pretty dense clay. I am just curious.

180’ of mushroom logs is pretty impressive. I don’t think I will be doing Shiitake any time soon—I am one of those persons who can’t tolerate the taste. Wine Caps, yes, portobello, definitely, Oysters, we are going to find out, but shiitake, no way.

Nonetheless, a very impressive accomplishment indeed.

Eric

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Tj Jefferson

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Location: Virginia USDA 7a/b

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posted 4 years ago

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Eric, the chips are deep in an area I just cleared, so there are a few reasons to keyline/subsoil.
-remove as many roots as possible from the sweetgums which are awful
-drive organic matter into the clay for traditional keyline benefits
-allow for areas of "soilish" material to allow planting gamagrass which takes a whole year before grazing (apparently) and I don't have a drill so this was the best way of getting seed/soil contact.
-allow for buried water line
-prevent the chips from washing down- at all- into the lower area where the pond is going. that would wreck the clay for the key. Still waterlogged right now probably have to wait for summer at this point.

I'm doing 90' of 16" diameter oyster logs this week since there is an hour after work. I've gone through a battery on the cordless drill. My other project is still on hold- making a mini-Paul electric vehicle with a DC to AC to run drills off the UTV batteries.

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Tj Jefferson

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Location: Virginia USDA 7a/b

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posted 4 years ago

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Sorry, I missed the question about the species-
Sweetgum for shiitake, nameko, and testing maitake and lions mane. Its a trash wood, sort of related to oak and closed cell so it should work in theory for all those.
Oyster is what I see on poplar (yellow or tulip poplar) in the woods and it fruits fast, like in 6 months even on these big logs.

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Tj Jefferson

pollinator

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Location: Virginia USDA 7a/b

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I just posted the walkaround, its crappy because its direct from my phone and I was going to splice it, but can't get it to my PC from my stupid iphone.

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Mark Griffin

Posts: 49

Location: Piedmont, North Carolina - 7b/8a

posted 4 years ago

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I hear you on the trashy Sweetgum. I have turned a lot into Shitake mushrooms myself. I did a little experiment with lion's mane a few years ago and it wasn't successful. They were small diameter logs, maybe 2-4". I am interested to hear if the larger diameter logs might be successful. Oysters also have done well for me on gum, but I don't use them much since the bugs and squirrels always get to them first. The logs also were much shorter lived, partly because the squirrels liked to rip the bark off. This was especially true of oysters on yellow poplar...they just peeled the bark right off!

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John F Dean

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Location: southern Illinois, USA

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posted 4 years ago

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I really like the idea of mushroom logs for the raised beds.

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Dennis Bangham

pollinator

Posts: 926

Location: Huntsville Alabama (North Alabama), Zone 7B

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posted 4 years ago

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Mark Griffin wrote: Oysters also have done well for me on gum, but I don't use them much since the bugs and squirrels always get to them first. The logs also were much shorter lived, partly because the squirrels liked to rip the bark off. This was especially true of oysters on yellow poplar...they just peeled the bark right off!

Look into getting some cool and cold weather varieties. I have wide range and cool weather varieties of Shiitake that provides me with a bounty in late fall and early spring.

20200223_105046.jpg

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