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shiitake

 
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We are just starting to get some handfuls of shiitakes off of logs we plugged a year ago March with a cold weather strain called 'bellwether'....fortunately we are having a cool really wet spring and they are pinning nicely. The wide range strain, 'west wind' that we plugged at the same time as the bellwether are not showing any signs of pinning yet. It is different every year. depending on the weather....usually the west winds have produced by now....

I thought more shiitake growers might want to share pictures as their logs produce.
Here's to some great eating!
shiitakes-004.jpg
Here's to some great eating!
 
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Nice harvest Judith! By coincidence, I started the same exact two strains of shiitake last year at this time with sawdust spawn from Field and Forest in Wisconsin. For the past five weeks I've been getting a nice bunch of mushrooms off my West Wind logs, but only a few from my Bellwether ones. Probably because I have been soaking the West Wind logs in a bucket and using clear plastic over their stack to increase humidity and retain warmth on our cool nights. I've only just started soaking the Bellwether logs, so it will be a while till they really get going. I'm also getting lots of king stropharia around my place from spawn I bought years ago from Field and Forest- I just keep transferring chunks of mycelium and spraying spore emulsion onto all my mulch to keep them going. I'll be starting almond agaricus on leached cow manure compost in boxes pretty soon. I highly recommend buying spawn from Field and Forest- I always have a 100% success rate with their spawn- nice folks for free advice, too. Sorry I can't post photos on this computer!
 
Judith Browning
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M.K. We buy our plugs from Field and Forest also...excellent service and nice to talk to on the phone with questions. We always intended to switch to sawdust spawn but just keep ordering the plugs for some reason.
This is the first year we are going to try to not soak the logs. We decided we were moving logs way too much and know that some folks just let them produce as they would naturally. I know we will miss that super big flush you get from a soak though. It is very rainy here so far this spring and today I have the bellwether logs covered to keep the rest from getting too wet an losing their nice texture. Just had eggs and shiitakes for lunch.

Post some pictures when you can.
 
Judith Browning
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Just found a surprise flush of our cold weather strain of shiitake, Bellwether. We had quit checking them for a bit because it was summer and we thought the wide range would produce into the summer not the cold weather. I was adjusting their shade cloth and found these had to go back for bigger bowls and the camera. i think another day or so and some of the fully open ones would have been past their prime.
looks like lunch and some to dry for winter! I really LOVE growing food.
shiitakes-001.jpg
Just found a surprise flush of our cold weather strain of shiitake, Bellwether.
shiitakes-005.jpg
I really LOVE growing food
shiitakes-007.jpg
handfuls of shiitakes
 
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Nice.
You might consider shocking the ones from the same batch that didn't fruit.

I'm in the middle of trying to reclaim my laying field after a massive Beech tree fell right in the middle of it. I'm shocking them all and the ones that don't fruit are going into a possible cull pile.

I'd love to see pics of anyone's fruiting area. I'm considering putting down black plastic and then making a A-frame because our shiitakes are near a stream that the slugs love.
 
Judith Browning
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Cj Verde wrote:Nice.
You might consider shocking the ones from the same batch that didn't fruit.

I'm in the middle of trying to reclaim my laying field after a massive Beech tree fell right in the middle of it. I'm shocking them all and the ones that don't fruit are going into a possible cull pile.

I'd love to see pics of anyone's fruiting area. I'm considering putting down black plastic and then making a A-frame because our shiitakes are near a stream that the slugs love.



after years of soaking and restacking logs we are going with the lazy way and letting the rain do the work.....not as many at once but this year it has been great.
We just moved out laying yard because we think it got unhealthy where it was at. Now they are just stacked in open piles and covered with shade cloth. The metal frame we had used and covered with shade cloth collapsed with snow over the winter.
we are only dealing with sixty to eighty logs at a time so this is working for us.
we do cover the ground with my husbands excess wood shavings to keep the dust and mud down and the piles are on a little rise. Slugs just aren't a problem here for some reason, even in the garden.

and my favorite way to cook them......cubed, coated with an egg, some fresh herb...this time oregano but our favorite is lovage, and sauted in a pretty hot skillet in olive oil for just three or four minutes.......any other way i think they come out kind of watery and a little slimy......we add the dry ones at the last mnute to a sauce or soup so they stay a little firmer.
shiitakes-010.jpg
my favorite way to cook them......cubed, coated with an egg, some fresh herb
 
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Judith Browning wrote:Just found a surprise flush of our cold weather strain of shiitake, Bellwether.



Wow, those are beautiful! What have the temperatures been like in your region?
 
Judith Browning
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Jennifer Quinn wrote:

Judith Browning wrote:Just found a surprise flush of our cold weather strain of shiitake, Bellwether.



Wow, those are beautiful! What have the temperatures been like in your region?



Hi, Jennifer..........thanks. The temperatures have been much cooler than normal for our area this summer, but not as cool as the bellwether type is intended. If I remember correctly they produce well when it is forties at night and sixties during the day. I think what did it was weekly great rains and then a cool down into the fifties at night and only up into the seventies during the day for a few days and then back to sunny and nineties..... This is the 'shocking' that CJ mentions above, except this just happened naturally. When we soaked the logs to produce a flush we would try to time it with a predicted change in the weather if we could. I know we couldn't duplicate this if we tried though..........I start to think we have shiitake growing figured out and then there is some other 'mother nature' variation.......same with the garden...it keeps things interesting
 
M.K. Dorje Jr.
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Judith, those photo are really cool. That recipe really sounds delicious- I'm gonna have to try that! I soaked a few of my Bellwether logs last month during a cool, wet period and I got a real nice fruiting off them. It's hot and dry here now, so I'm going to wait till fall before I soak any more logs. In the meantime, I've started running a sprinkler on one of the White Chanterelle patches that is next to my main blueberry garden. I've also been finding Yellow Chanterelles along the ocean in the fog belt- woohoo!
 
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Have any of you tried to grow shitake on uprooted tree stumps ? I've made an arrangement to have hundreds of stumps delivered in demolition containers for a very ambitious hugelkultur project. For mushrooms, the excavator would stack them in rows 8-10 ft high, with a 4 foot corridor between. My plan, which is open to revision, is to inoculate them immediately and hope the shitake become dominant. Moisture is not a problem. Any suggestions on how to prevent other mushrooms from invading. Cleanliness is not an option, due to the awkward nature of stumps.

I may place a few thick rows up to 10 feet apart and span the gap with a single plane greenhouse roof. This would be a sort of pit house for things that can take partial shade. I imagine that the fruiting season would be different inside the greenhouses. I'm hoping to extend the harvest period by providing differing conditions, since shocking and moisture control will be less accurate in piles that may go 100 tons each. This is all dependent on supply. There's room for 1000 tons. They are paying me $4 per cubic yard. This works out to roughly $10 per ton. Material will show up muddy and busted up from being packed into the bins with an excavator.
 
Cj Sloane
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Dale Hodgins wrote:Have any of you tried to grow shitake on uprooted tree stumps ?



No, but you sort of have a limited time frame from when the tree dies. You have to wait at least a few days and maybe up to a week before inoculating. OTOH you shouldn't wait more than a few weeks to do it. FYI, if you don't have the angle grinder adaptor for drilling the holes you should get one unless you're using another method.
 
Judith Browning
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Dale Hodgins wrote:Have any of you tried to grow shitake on uprooted tree stumps ? I've made an arrangement to have hundreds of stumps delivered in demolition containers for a very ambitious hugelkultur project. For mushrooms, the excavator would stack them in rows 8-10 ft high, with a 4 foot corridor between. My plan, which is open to revision, is to inoculate them immediately and hope the shitake become dominant. Moisture is not a problem. Any suggestions on how to prevent other mushrooms from invading. Cleanliness is not an option, due to the awkward nature of stumps.

I may place a few thick rows up to 10 feet apart and span the gap with a single plane greenhouse roof. This would be a sort of pit house for things that can take partial shade. I imagine that the fruiting season would be different inside the greenhouses. I'm hoping to extend the harvest period by providing differing conditions, since shocking and moisture control will be less accurate in piles that may go 100 tons each. This is all dependent on supply. There's room for 1000 tons. They are paying me $4 per cubic yard. This works out to roughly $10 per ton. Material will show up muddy and busted up from being packed into the bins with an excavator.



we've only plugged logs that we have cut and hauled....within two or three weeks of live tree dormant cutting and we are careful to not drag or otherwise prolong their time on the ground.........and I think that one of the reasons that our old laying yard became contaminated with so many other fungi was from mud splash back and my rush to water without airing out the chlorine first. I do think shiitakes need a bit more care than some other mushrooms in order to give them a running start over other fungi.....once the other stuff gets a hold there is no going back it seems.
we've never innoculated a stump, only 2"-8" logs that are 4 foot long. I think, for you the soil contaminating the stump and the age of the stump might be the most important things to consider in getting something productive going.
So my answer is really, 'I don't know' , I'd say go for it and let us know what happens.......somebody has to step out of the box

I think the closer you plug the better start the shiitakes will have......we sometimes spread the holes at the farthest limit but it might be that closer would be a more certain thing.
 
Judith Browning
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M.K. Dorje Jr. wrote:Judith, those photo are really cool. That recipe really sounds delicious- I'm gonna have to try that! I soaked a few of my Bellwether logs last month during a cool, wet period and I got a real nice fruiting off them. It's hot and dry here now, so I'm going to wait till fall before I soak any more logs. In the meantime, I've started running a sprinkler on one of the White Chanterelle patches that is next to my main blueberry garden. I've also been finding Yellow Chanterelles along the ocean in the fog belt- woohoo!



It is delicious....and I had it again for lunch today with homemade humus, pesto and a cherokee purple tomato and a suyo long cucumber..........I can't tell if the bellwether's really taste better than any other variety or I was just really missing shiitakes......
white chanterelles I'll have to look them up, I know we don't have them. are they flavorful?
yellow ones along the ocean in the fog belt sounds like fun hunting Ours are done, and I don't think it's likely we'll get more for several years...fun while it lasted.
 
M.K. Dorje Jr.
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Judith, the White Chanterelle (Cantharellus subalbidus) is not found in your area. Apparently they're only found in the Pacific Northwest and California. (However, I think there is also a similar chanterelle found in northern Europe.) The flavor is superb, very similar to our version of the Golden Chanterelle, only slightly meatier. In fact, they make a great substitute for chicken and go well with cream sauces or pasta. I find the White Chanterelle underneath Douglas-fir, manzanita, madrone, tanoak and chinquapin. They are extremely difficult (or impossible) to cultivate, but established wild patches respond well to summer watering and misting. I use a lawn sprinkler, then switch to a mister latter in the summer. Fruitings begin in Oregon in mid to late summer and last till mid to late fall. Here's the scoop from wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantharellus_subalbidus
 
M.K. Dorje Jr.
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Dale Hodgins wrote:Have any of you tried to grow shitake on uprooted tree stumps ? I've made an arrangement to have hundreds of stumps delivered in demolition containers for a very ambitious hugelkultur project. For mushrooms, the excavator would stack them in rows 8-10 ft high, with a 4 foot corridor between. My plan, which is open to revision, is to inoculate them immediately and hope the shitake become dominant. Moisture is not a problem. Any suggestions on how to prevent other mushrooms from invading. Cleanliness is not an option, due to the awkward nature of stumps.

I may place a few thick rows up to 10 feet apart and span the gap with a single plane greenhouse roof. This would be a sort of pit house for things that can take partial shade. I imagine that the fruiting season would be different inside the greenhouses. I'm hoping to extend the harvest period by providing differing conditions, since shocking and moisture control will be less accurate in piles that may go 100 tons each. This is all dependent on supply. There's room for 1000 tons. They are paying me $4 per cubic yard. This works out to roughly $10 per ton. Material will show up muddy and busted up from being packed into the bins with an excavator.



Dale, I have some questions about your plan. What species of trees are the stumps from? When do you plan to inoculate the stumps (summer, fall, etc.)? How soon after the trees are cut and the stumps excavated?
My experience with shiitake is that they are very susceptible to contamination problems from ground contact or mud and my gut feeling is that they would probably not be a good choice for a project like this. Plus, they only can grow on certain hardwoods such as oak or maple. (But perhaps certain aggressive strains of oyster mushrooms could succeed.) Just my 2 cents.
 
Dale Hodgins
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Thank you everyone for your help. I was planning to use maple and Arbutus (also known as Pacific Madrona), fruit wood and a little bit of oak. Oak is rare here and has other uses. I'm encouraging the supplier to leave the stumps dirty, since they contain the best top soil and I'm short of good soil. I will try the oysters and will give shitake a limited try. If one or both fail, the stumps will go into hugelkultur.

Sometimes, whole trees may be munched and sent my way. I could hose off nice sections of log and do it more conventionally. Here's the big question. How much do you suppose you male per hour for your efforts if you were to sell 100% of the crop ?
 
Judith Browning
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How much do you suppose you make per hour for your efforts if you were to sell 100% of the crop ?



Dale, that's a great question and I can't answer it because we don't sell them Growing shiitakes for us is like growing anything else here........ we find it worth the investment for the future food but only on that family farm level not sales.

I think there are a few shiitake growers in this area who do quite well though. I also think it gets pretty labor intensive to do on that kind of scale in order to have dependable production. A lot of growers go to dried shiitakes because of the short shelf life of fresh. Most have spring water for misting the logs and some a roofed enclosure with misters....fork lifts........dehydrators.........cheap labor.........
 
Cj Sloane
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Starting on page 49 of Best Management Practices for Log-Based Shiitake Cultivation in the Northeastern United States is a great section called "Enterprise Viability." Good breakdown of the numbers.
 
Dale Hodgins
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Thanks CJ. I'll give that a look. I try not to compete with cheap labor.

Another mushroom option for me, might be to use coffee grounds as a substrate for oysters. I've used about 2 tons of it this year. The spent material would go to the garden.
 
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Here's my new fruiting station:

We put copper wire around the legs of the A-frame and hopefully that'll keep the slugs from climbing up it.

I'm finally re-grouping after a massive birch tree fell right in the middle of my laying yard about a month ago. You can see it in the pic. It fell across a small stream we put our logs next to for humidity & gravity fed water for shocking. I've been shocking all the logs and will sort out the culls, maybe giving them another chance in a few weeks. In a few more days I'll have a big harvest and get an idea how many more logs I'd need to start selling them.

I think I could start with selling 5 lbs at a time which I think, could theoretically come from 25 good logs. Then I'd need 25 * 7 (175 good logs total) to get a good rotation going.
 
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Has anyone read about vibrations helping fruiting?
 
Judith Browning
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Cj...i like your set up for laying the logs....do you sprinkle/mist them in place or move them to soak and then restack? We were soaking in an old iron tub with aired out municipal water and then leaning the logs against a pole supported through the holes in concrete blocks on each end....and the ends of the logs up on rocks. not as neat looking as yours. after doing it that way for ten years, the thing we've been wanting to get away from is moving the logs so much, so we are trying an open crib arrangement and this last flush i was able to get at all of them pretty good.
and I wonder if you use a fruiting blanket? after soaking we tried a light weight white tarp and kept doing that because otherwise the mushrooms seemed to dry out too quickly before they were fully open.
Don't know anything about vibrations helping fruiting....like 'good vibrations' or actually shaking the logs?
 
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The goal of that design was to minimize slug damage & it seems to be working. I think you said they aren't a problem for you.

There will be a certain amount of log moving going on. First they go on pallets, then into a 100 gallon rubbermaid stock tank (fed by the stream), and then on the A frame for fruiting, then back to the pallets. If you have 7 stacks then you have enough to keep rotating. Larger diameter logs will be shorter so I can move them.

Right now they are in dappled shade by a small stream so I don't think they'll dry out. The laying field is deep enough into the forest that I'd need a flash to take a pic, I think.
 
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It turns out I had heard about striking the logs before from Sepp Holtzer's Permaculture:

'Dormant' logs can, however, be activated by soaking them for a few hours and striking them with a mallet or rock.



I have 3 other sources so there is likely something to it. One guy on youtube said he didn't really believe it but after shocking some logs he banged every other one on the ground before stacking them and when he came back in a few days there was a clear pattern that every other log was loaded with mushrooms.

Paul Stamets has said that that's why mushrooms come up along a foot path - the vibrations wake them up.

Also, the Japanese claim that mushrooms fruit better during a thunderstorm (with loud, vibrating thunder) than just a regular rainstorm.

This is not just for Shiitakes but Oysters & probably other mushrooms as well.
 
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I'm about to have a big shiitake harvest! What's the best way to store them fresh? And how many days should they last?

I tend to keep them out on the counter & they will dry out eventually but I'm not sure that's the best way to do it.
 
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Here are several answers to my own question from the Shiitake guide I've linked to prior:

Storing the fresh mushrooms
For a high-quality mushroom, it is important to get the harvested mushrooms
into refrigerated storage as soon as possible, certainly within one hour
of picking. These mushrooms will remain fresh and marketable for several
weeks, if kept in a cool (41°F), dry and dark place. Do not seal them in an
airtight container. A paper bag (not plastic) works very well. Keep in mind
that mushrooms will dry out and lose weight the longer they are stored. See
sidebar for more information.



And from the sidebar:

Stainless steel hotel pans have become
our preferred storage container
because they are large and come in
various sizes. To control moisture in the
bottom of the pans we put down a layer
of paper towel, but leave the top open.
If we have to hold mushrooms a week
or more, we’ll transfer them to clean
pans occasionally and replace the paper
towels. This helps to make sure they
have good air circulation around them,
too. We use baskets in the fridge at
times, but have found that the fiber baskets
start to mold pretty quickly. Those
are reserved now for harvesting. Paper
bags don’t work well for long, unless
you deliver or sell your mushrooms the
day or so after harvest. This, of course, is
the best-case scenario! One factor that I
don’t think we’ll ever be able to account
for is shrinkage from dehydration in the
fridge. What we harvest and what we
sell can be quite different depending
on how long they are refrigerated. That
brings down the “income per pound” by
some percentage unknown.
-Steve and Julie Rockcastle,
Green Heron Growers



“It’s been my experience this year that
wax-lined cardboard boxes are the best
way to store mushrooms in the refrigerator.
I have been getting boxes from my
restaurants. They typically have several
openings to allow air flow through the
box during storage.
“One thing I’ve learned is not to put
too many mushrooms in a box. For example,
I can fit about 6 to 7 pounds in
a typical box (15”x20”x4”) and that’s
about it. Mushrooms keep very well in
a fridge, if stored properly, with some
air flow. If you overcrowd fresh mushrooms
the bottom ones won’t get any
air flow and they’ll head south sooner
that you’d like them to.”
- Matt Anderson,
Tyrrel Mushroom Farm

 
Judith Browning
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Cj Verde wrote:I'm about to have a big shiitake harvest! What's the best way to store them fresh? And how many days should they last?

I tend to keep them out on the counter & they will dry out eventually but I'm not sure that's the best way to do it.



that's exciting! after stemming we usually keep the ones to eat that day out and the rest go in lunch bag size paper bags in the refrigerator. I think, If I were selling them I wouldn't store more than two or three days, otherwise they are perfectly fine and edible for a week or maybe a bit more. The last batch I put most of them, stemmed, straight into the dehydrator. We used to slice to dry and then found that they dry just fine whole and look pretty cool that way:)
I think how well that they keep, depends on how wet they are at harvest.........our last batch had perfectly dry surfaces, but more often they are pretty damp feeling...I think the dryer ones keep better.
I've never sold any so don't know really what works best for that. I know that a lot of growers here ended up selling dried shiitakes and got a great price. I have read that if you can dry them in the sun it increases their B12......I've tried that but it is just too humid when they are bearing for it to be a reliable method.
post some pictures if you can........
 
Cj Sloane
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YEEHAW!


I filled up a brown paper lunch bag with about half of the mushrooms on the most plentiful log.

It was 11.5 ounces, enough for dinner for sure- hamburgers from our own cattle. I don't have any of our home-raised bacon handy, too bad! That would make for a killer homegrown meal but it'll still be fine without it.

I'm guessing the total harvest will be 5 lbs, there are quite a few really full logs. The best are from 2 years ago, probably hickory & probably WR 46 but that was before I insisted on putting tags on the bolts.

My husband was ready to give up on the whole enterprise because he kept shocking them in June and nothing was happening. Now we're both inspired. I've been cutting down a lot of small trees, feeding the tops to my livestock and cutting up the rest for firewood and mushroom bolts. So good to see it working out as planned.
 
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BEAUTIFUL! we have only used varieties of oak, but lately my husband has wanted to try hickory.......I'll be sure he sees the success in your picture. Our very best harvests have been after soaking in the fall...august and september. we were hoping with this cool weather strain that we would have some on in to the winter, but here it is fruiting now. We have had a couple spontanious fruitings one year at thanksgiving and again at christmas after some good rains.......surprise!
The main strain we plug is a wide range called west wind....and after a few years we started labeling the logs
 
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There are quite a few species that support shiitake & quite a few that also host oyster. I had to take down a few small oaks for my new food forest, but I really like the idea of turning low value trees like birch and beech into high value meat (via the leaves) & mushrooms.

If you've got lots of trees it doesn't hurt to experiment as long as you are keeping good records! I guess it just take a few years of bad record keeping to figure it out.

We are supposed to get a crazy amount of rain tonight, like a few inches. This will be a good harvesting experiment. How will the shiitakes I left fair? Will the slugs really not cross the copper? Stay tuned!
 
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So far no slug damage! I'm starting to think that slugs were eating the pins on the logs my husband was trying to force earlier.

I picked everything that was pickable last night due to rain and the total so far is 3 lbs. Lots more are on the way.

I did make shiitake bacon cheeseburgers and I asked the family if it was umami overload. No F'ing way was the response.

What do people do to protect against rain? Does shade cloth help? We have a lot of used metal roofing my husband got off a job site. I'm considering making another A-frame with a roof.
 
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What do people do to protect against rain? Does shade cloth help? We have a lot of used metal roofing my husband got off a job site. I'm considering making another A-frame with a roof.


When we soaked the logs in the past, after stacking, before pinning, I covered with a light weight white tarp to both hold in moisture and to keep out excess moisture from rain. I think some use a bought 'fruiting blanket' and others clear plastic..........otherwise they are open to whatever rain can come through the shade cloth.
We don't have any really dense shade close to the house so we have covered my old display (from craft shows) with shade cloth that my husband traded for one of his big wooden ladles.....It works great to keep them in enough shade, but doesn't allow the rain through as well as I would have thought. We have just got it all set up again after the snow and ice last winter collapsed it.
I always thought having them set up under the dripline of an out building would be ideal....haven't tried it though.
shadehouse.jpg
[Thumbnail for shadehouse.jpg]
 
Cj Sloane
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That looks like good, dappled shade.
 
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Sorry I'm late to the discussion. I am trying to dip my logs in unchlorinated water during the summer. I just leave it out so the chlorine gases off.

Dale-I agree with MK-Shiitake is the wrong species for a stump project. There are some species that love to chew up stumps. One that we find here in the PNW is Hypholoma capnoides. Conifer tuft-don't confuse it with the poisonous sulfur tuft. It loves to chew up stumps and it's a choice edible. Paul Stamets writes about it in Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Medicinal Mushrooms and/or Mycelium Running.
John S
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Cj Sloane
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Almost 11 lbs of shiitakes and still some more to harvest! I supposed I need at least that much every week to start selling.

My ladies book club/pot luck is tomorrow so I'm thinking about bringing a shiitake spread. Here's a recipe from Shiitake: the ABCs of endless culinary delights. Has anyone tried it or another recipe? If not, I'll post a review in a few days.

2 lbs shiitake mushrooms
4 cups hazelnuts
1/4 cup Olive Oil
1 head of garlic
1 avocado or 8 oz cream cheese
4 tblsp of ume plum vinegar or red wine
Salt and Pepper to Taste

Makes 2 Quarts or 64 oz

Coarsely chop hazelnuts in a food processor and combine with minced shiitake and olive oil in a skillet. Cook on medium heat for 10 minutes, then add garlic & cook another 10 minutes until cooked down and browning. Add ume vinegar/red wine to the last five minutes of cooking. Let cool and add avacado/cream cheese and process well in food processor, adding salt and pepper to taste.

More shiitake flavor if made 24 hours ahead.

***edit*** the recipe doesn't say when to add the garlic so I've adjusted it to cook with the shiitakes at the 10 minute mark.
 
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Im still new to Mushrooms. As of late I have been going to some mushroom and wild editable walks. Right now we are staying away from gilled mushrooms and focusing on 4 that we can find in most any season. In any event I ordered a indoor shittake kit from fungi perfecti. It did well enough and I was happy being as this was my first go around. I broke up the wood chip block and mixed it with some water soaked furniture dowels.I placed them in a small Styrofoam cooler.After about 2 weeks the mycilium started to grow on/ in the dowels. I have since drilled holes into the oak logs and hammered in the dowels. I will be looking forward to seeing how things turn out.
 
Cj Sloane
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The shiitake hazelnut spread was good but quite firm, like a cheese ball. Maybe whipped cream cheese or avacado would be softer. Anyway, it tastes like what you'd expect it to. My picky husband loved it, but he loves nuts & mushrooms.

I made too much & book club was a small gathering this month so I used the leftovers in meatballs, which combines 3 things my husband loves; nuts & mushrooms and meat - in this case beef & pork. I try to eat low carb/paleo so this was a good replacement for the bread normally in meatballs or meatloaf. I once tried quinoa but it was voted down (I liked it).
 
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So my total harvest was just shy of 16 lbs from roughly 25 logs. I'd need 7 or 8 times that to get that much every week so 200 logs. I think I can do that! I've inoculated about 60 so far this year and I was surprised to see one log (the paper birch in the middle) really well colonized already:


I've cut down & inoculated a bunch more paper birch in the hopes that they'll fruit next spring. I know they'll wear out quicker but if they get up and running quicker, that's OK.

So after that big flush, some logs started to pin again! They produced a few small shiitakes but I decide to soak them again and it looks like a bunch more are fruiting. I know you're supposed to wait at least 7 weeks before trying to force them, but if their going to fruit again naturally I figure I'd better rehydrate.

Anyone experience something similar?
 
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Dale Hodgins wrote:Thank you everyone for your help. I was planning to use maple and Arbutus (also known as Pacific Madrona), fruit wood and a little bit of oak. Oak is rare here and has other uses. I'm encouraging the supplier to leave the stumps dirty, since they contain the best top soil and I'm short of good soil. I will try the oysters and will give shitake a limited try. If one or both fail, the stumps will go into hugelkultur.

Sometimes, whole trees may be munched and sent my way. I could hose off nice sections of log and do it more conventionally. Here's the big question. How much do you suppose you male per hour for your efforts if you were to sell 100% of the crop ?



Dale I know you probably have access to alder. Would work for Shiitake and oysters according to this:


http://www.fungi.com/product-detail/product/shiitake-plug-spawn-approx-1000-plugs.html

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ALB00026/Growing-Shiitake-Mushrooms.html

 
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Cj Verde wrote:
So after that big flush, some logs started to pin again! They produced a few small shiitakes but I decide to soak them again and it looks like a bunch more are fruiting. I know you're supposed to wait at least 7 weeks before trying to force them, but if their going to fruit again naturally I figure I'd better rehydrate.

Anyone experience something similar?



Here's the result of resoaking:

The sampling was small but 20% excellent fruiting, 50% had a handful, and 30% duds.
shiitakes-2nd-round.jpg
[Thumbnail for shiitakes-2nd-round.jpg]
 
I agree. Here's the link: https://woodheat.net
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