John Suavecito

Well, the spraying seems to have made a difference. Before, I had zero mushrooms this year. Afterwards, this showed up:
It's just a few logs for my personal use, but it made a big difference!

John S
PDX OR

It's speculative, but it makes sense in a way.  Kelpie Wilson has touted biochar as a means of preventing future forest fires.  The idea is that it absorbs 6 times it's volume in water, so the forest wouldn't burn as likely with all that water in it. One step away is cooling from evaporation.
JohnS
PDX OR

Good idea! Only use cheap beer for the slugs.  They prefer it anyway. Save the good stuff for you and your friends.

I do have some slug predation on my horseradish.  However, it can be a plant used as a slug trap-to keep slugs away from others-it still grows vigorously.  It can also be used for entrapment. Go out, just before you go to bed, or just as you wake up, maybe with a flashlight, and grab all the slugs. Then smear them on some concrete. Then their buddies will come by the next day to eat them and you can kill them too.

John S
PDX OR

I planted some about 20? years ago.  It started to get shaded out so I moved parts of the roots.  It is an amazing plant! Tons of mild, good tasting huge green leaves.  Mostly I just chop up the leaves and put them in beans, oats, quinoa, rice, etc.  I have ground the root and used it in cocktail sauce and it was great.  However, I don't want to kill the plant, because I eat it so often.   Mine never get a chance to get too big because I eat the leaves so often.  

Since it's cruciferous, it fights cancer.  Out of the 3 new ones I started, 2 are still alive.  None have become troublesome, just productive. The 2 that got shaded have died.  

One caveat-never till where there are horseradishes or you will get tons of little plants around where the pieces of root are.  I have seen this happen when I worked in landscaping many years ago.  

I wouldn't put it in your raised bed. I'd just put it in the ground on its own, in sun.  

It's a great plant.

John S
PDX OR

Eric Hanson wrote:I see nothing wrong with adding compost.  But do it after letting the water sit.  The reason: compost will shade the water—especially the lower part—and the chlorine might not get fully irradiated by the sun.  But after 2 days, go for it!

And regarding the logs—frustrating trying to isolate the logs from everything that might try to compete.  But then these did exist in the wild far earlier than any human tried to make the process work for himself.  So it can deal with some pressure.

Great point on the waiting.  I will take note of that.

Your second point would be helpful if I were trying to increase the evolutionary power of the shiitake species.  However, my goal is to increase the yield of my shiitake mushrooms.  Making preferable habitat for other fungi won't help that.  Same with wet paper.  

Newspaper is an interesting idea.  It might, over time, attract spores from weed fungi, which is a real problem with shiitake. It is amazing to see how many spores flow through the air that we can't see.   I agree that leaving water out for a few hours lets chlorine drift off.  I do that.  Elaine Ingham told me that if you put a bit of compost in tap water, enough to see that it has visibly turned brown, it will neutralize the chloramine.

John S
PDX OR

I agree on both counts.
John S
PDX OR

Interesting idea.  You have to put shiitake on pallets because they will be infected by weed fungi. Sawdust would infect them, as would water, probably. They are from a summer rain climate, which I clearly don't live in.

John S
PDX OR