growing mushrooms...

i love mushrooms, not only do they taste good, but they are really good for you...shiitake mushrroms even have anti-cancer properties! i also didnt know that you could grow shiitake mushrooms in your very own backyard! when i read an article on it, i was immediatly interested...so i did some research online, and found out that it is pretty easy to do...so, i ordered some shiitake spores/ spawn on little wooden dowels. you can buy spores in a couple different ways and there are alot of different mushroom types that you can grow, including shiitake, oyster (pink, blue and even yellow colored!!), morrel, portebella, and white button...go to this site: http://www.fieldforest.net/ they have a ton of info on buying & growing shrooms!

here are my mushroom spores on wooden dowels!

all you need to start is a good sized log from a freshly cut hard wood tree...i used maple! it has to be freshly cut because you need the moisture from the tree and you do not want your log to be infected with any type of "wild" spores...some wild mushrooms can be poisonous!! drill holes in the log using a large drill bit...you want to drill the holes in a diamond pattern. next, you push the dowels into holes you just drilled. once you have all the holes filled you can cover each hole with a food grade wax, like cheese wax, to keep moisture in.

my holes in a diamond pattern.

so once you have finished that, you can move the log to a shady corner of your yard! do not put directly on the ground (again "wild" spores)...i am going to put this log up on a cement block...hose it down every once in a while, to keep it moist. the mushrooms will take a long time to grow...somewhere between 9-12 months! but it will be worth the wait!