Growing My Own Shiitake Mushrooms

We adore mushrooms of all sorts... but have you looked at the prices lately?!  So when we had a chance to take a class on growing Shiitake mushrooms I jumped on the opportunity.  

It all starts with logs.

For Shiitake (each kind of mushroom has different requirements) you can use logs of oak, pecan, walnut, alder, sweet gum, hard maple, ironwood, hornbeam, cherry, sycamore, tulip popular, ash, birch, and willow.

Do not use conifers, fruit trees, elm, hackberry, sassafras, soft maple dogwood, black locust, beech, or hickory.

Those above are oak.  You start with fresh cut logs from a living tree (no snags) no older than 6 weeks from the cutting.  You want them 6" to 7" in diameter (width sets how long the log will be productive which is about a year per inch of diameter~ but remember... you have to be able to move them!).  Cut at about 3' long.

Make some sort of work station or your back will be very upset with you!

Mark all the way around the log about 5-ish inch place in a row, next row off-set from the one previous.  Go all the way around the log back to your first row.

Drill 12 mm holes about 1 inch deep.  

For the class we had a sawdust spore mix, which uses this tool.  You jam it down into the sawdust mix and plunge it into the holes.  You can also buy little plugs that you just stick into the hole.  

Here's the sawdust mix.  The white is mycelium.  It is a type of fungus that helps break down wood.  It is a good thing.

Using the plunger to push in the sawdust mix.

The hole filled.

See all the filled holes?

Then you seal the holes with a food grade paraffin.

Just brush it on good and thick.

Like this.

My finished log.

Now it goes to a dark-ish place, like the north side of a building.  Keep an eye that it doesn't get too dry.  If so, it needs to soak for about 12 hours...more than that will drown the mushrooms.

In 6 to 9 months it should start looking like this (it is called a flush).  A log should produce 3 to 5 flushes a year.  

I am hoping for my first flush in time for Thanksgiving dinner!