Mushroom log 2024

Dear future self,

This is a letter post with notes to my future self as well as friends and visitors, logging thoughts and insights about what we did with mushrooms in 2024.   I found we forget lessons and insights from recent years and maybe this will help!

August 21
Shiitake flushes; grain expansion for snow oyster no report
- We had a fantastic shiitake flush - about 8 pounds from 5 logs within a week of soaking.  Perfect weather: 70-80 degrees and plenty of rain.  Going to try again this week.
- Expanding grain for snow oyster this week.  Trying the soak for 24 hours method to reduce energy used for heating up water in NSNS method done on Aug 11 (boiling the water was not required, but seemed like a good idea to get the grain to expand inside the closed bags before sterilizing).   Made a bucket with 32 cups of millet and 16 cups of water.



August 13, 2024
Shiitake flushes, spent straw use, almond agaricus info
- We had three successful shiitake flushes, a couple with multiple pounds.  Maybe better in later summer?
- Most of our Oyster buckets inoculated all of June got severely contaminated and moldy by early August.   Some buckets were fine.  Most buckets fruited but by early August at a lower level that expected.  Trying to figure out what is going on.  Possibly: we went to letting the straw drain excess water quickly on a table with 1/2" hardware cloth and we did not let it drain out enough so the buckets were too wet.   Some of the buckets also had gnats in them, so possibly gnats are getting in and eating the mycelium and then the buckets start to mold.  Both of these hypotheses are consistent with some buckets being OK.  For now, we have started to do two things: squeeze the straw before putting it into the buckets (often, a lot of water comes out!), re-taping holes after a fruiting (the micropore tape comes off when you harvest).
- We have been putting good white myceliated straw from buckets that are done (after 8 weeks) in the tall grass of the 3-sisters garden, next to the Garden House (nice and shady, but we can keep an eye on it).  They have been giving us a nice extra flush.  
-- After the extra flush, we're going to compost the oyster straw and any shiitake blocks (any sawdust blocks?) and then...
-NEXT YEAR - order almond agaricus and grow it in this compost!  Resources: video on planting bed and caring for the bed and  article on growing under vegetables. For more super infos, do a YouTube search for "almond agaricus field and forest".
-- Monotub update: we did the 10  lime-water soak for newspaper pellets for chestnuts and wood pellets for King Oyster on July 23.  August 13 so far no contamination, white substrate seems to be growing.
-- I also went back to grain expansion - poured X cups boiling hot water into bags with Y cups millet.  Let it soak up water for 30 minutes then sterilized at 17 PSI for 90 minutes.  August 11 inoculated in Still air box from Northspore.  2 days later - many spots of white mycelium fuzz in the bags!   However, forgot to note the ratio of water to millet.  According to notes from Aug 1 this may be the recipe:
A no soak no cook (NSNC) recipe for millet from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuRUYt25j-A
This also includes recipe for oats and bird seed (more water than millet)
Recipe:
300 ml millet and 150 ml water basically 2:1 ratio.

Shiitake logs, buckets, and chestnuts, June 17, 2024
- Shiitake logs that are smallest in diameter (2") did not fruit after soaking.  Maybe too small and dried up?
- Pioppino from last year in straw was totally dead (as expected).
- OYSTERS IN BUCKETS are consistently pretty successful.
- KING oyster does not work in buckets - the small babies fall off, they can't hold on to the small holes that they fruit out of.  Also did not colonize very well.  
- Snow oysters started April 10 in buckets gave a nice harvest of 15 pints (all three buckets) on May 21 and another one pint June 8, but probably these need to be started earlier.  
- Pink oysters fruit 3 weeks after inoculation!  
- CHESTNUTS in monotub with newspaper pellets - substrate seemed to be too wet.  We did experiments with just adding water to the newspaper pellets and not letting it soak, just putting the pellets right into the bins (to reduce time that the pellets were in the open air).   One set (put in pellets, pour water over) there was complete failure.  In another set (mix pellets very briefly before putting into monotub we do get fruiting, but it looks kind of slimy.  not very apetizing.  First flush tossed out for chicken food.  I am going to try an experiment with adding lime water to the pellets and letting them do the regular 10 minute soak to get properly hydrated, and then putting into monotub.  



Mushroom logs, March 31
- We cut logs from oak for shiitake mushroom inoculation.  Another wood that would work well is alder, of which we have a lot.  For oyster, we could use our willows, down the line.  Northspore.com has a great overview chart.  
- For the spawn plugs next time, remember to USE SAWDUST and the matching tools: the angle grinder adapter, a 12mm drill bit, and a thumb-press log inoculation tool.   I forgot that we had these tools, and instead we got wooden plugs, and used a regular drill to make the holes.  It took two days of labor to inoculate 36 logs; with the sawdust tools it would take half of that time.
- We used one of our little saucepans to melt the wax, which resulted in a long and painful clean-up.  Ella said one of her mushroom growing friends uses a small crockpot, dedicated just to wax melting.  You can even save left-over wax in it, and pick one up from Goodwill or something for $5.  Good tip.
- To daub on the wax, we don't need wax daubers because we can make a better one at home.  Grab a bit of clean sheep wool, some twine, and a 12" stick.  Wrap the sheep wool around the end of the stick so it's the size of a ping-pong ball and secure with the twine.

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