Fall Foraging: Mushrooms

Our home mushroom growing attempts have not been successful. Yet, wild mushrooms so very well! Which got us to thinking that maybe we should learn something about mushroom identification.

After one of our rainy spells, we found this next to the driveway. . .

This is Hen of the Woods; kin to Chicken of the Woods but not as colorful. I gathered some for dinner.

I sliced them up

and sauteed them in olive oil.

They had a good flavor, but they weren't as tender as the button mushroom I buy at the grocery store.

Then we had another hot dry spell and no more mushrooms until it rained again. This same patch of hen of the woods grew back.

This time, I decided to dehydrate them and make mushroom powder.

I harvested about one pound and put them in the dehydrator at the vegetable setting.

By the end of the afternoon they were crispy dry. Then I powdered them in the blender.

One pound fresh filled about a third of a pint jar. So it would take about three pounds of mushrooms for a pint of mushroom powder. If I find more, I'll make more.

Mushroom powder with a few flakes.

Not exactly an appealing color, but it smells really good. I'll use it in gravies and soups this winter.

Anyone else foraging fall mushrooms?

Fall Foraging: Mushrooms © November 2020

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Mushroom Fail

About a year ago, Dan and I prepared logs and planted about 200 mushroom plugs. (That post is here.) We read it could take up to a year for the harvest.

Well, the year has come and gone and, disappointingly, we have no mushrooms!

Mushroom logs one year after inoculating.

We followed the care instructions, but a couple of possible reasons for the fail come to mind. One is that even with a weekly watering, they probably needed more because our hot summer days tend to dry things out. The other is that the log location actually got more sun than we thought it would.

Not to be deterred, I bought a different kind to try, wine cap mushrooms. They can be grown in wood chips, which will be easier to keep moist. Plus they seem to tolerate a little more sun. Dan built a bed in the same spot as the logs and planted them.

Wine cap mushroom bed beside the path.

These, also, can take up to a year to produce so expect an update in March of 2021!

Mushroom Fail © March 2020

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Mushrooms

Something I've eyed in seed catalogues over the years are mushroom kits. We love mushrooms, but the price for kit always held me back. Sow True Seed, however, sells both kits and plugs. The price of plugs is reasonable, and since we already have all the things we need to plant them, this was a good way to go. I bought two kinds - shiitake and white oyster.

Shiitake and white oyster mushroom plugs, 100 of each.

The plugs are set into live logs, so we scheduled our planting session for February. This is the month Dan designated for a job on our pasture improvement goals - trim low branches overhanging the edges of the pasture.

We invested in a pole saw for this job. Much safer
than climbing a ladder with a large chain saw!

That raised the canopy along the pasture fence line, plus gave us the logs we needed for the mushrooms! According to the excellent instructions provided with the plugs, white oak is recommended as the best. That's exactly what needed to be trimmed back.

Oak limbs in 4-foot sections.

Holes for the plugs are drilled 1 & 1/4 inch deep with a 5/16-inch drill bit. They are spaced six to eight inches apart in rows three to four inches apart.

The plugs are inch-long pieces of dowel that have been scored and inoculated with mushroom spawn.

They are pounded into the drilled holes.

And then coated with beeswax.

I set up a hotplate in the milking room for waxing the plugs.

I marked the ends of the logs with either an "O" for white oyster or an "S" for Shiitaki. The mushrooms themselves look very different so in some ways it shouldn't matter. But you never know.

The instructions said that logs cut more than seven to ten days previously would need to be soaked for 12 to 24 hours. We skipped that step because ours were still freshcut and green.

I waxed the cut ends of the logs and then stacked them behind the goat barn next to the big rain catchment tank. That spot remains in shade all day and will be easy to water if needed.

Now we wait! I read it can take up to a year for a first harvest.

Have you tried to grow mushrooms? How did it go?

Mushrooms © Feb. 2019 by Leigh

at http://www.5acresandadream.com/