On one of our trips to the Mother Earth News Fair, Grand bought some shiitake mushroom plugs. Grand took them home and placed them in the fridge, and unfortunately there they stayed for months. But, finally, we decided it was time to see if we have what it takes to be mushroom farmers. (Well, OK, maybe not farmers exactly, but at least see if we could grow some mushrooms.)
We talked to our friend Ron Cabe, a super mushroom farmer. We buy almost all our mushrooms from him at the farmer’s market. Being the great person that he is, he agreed to help us do our mushroom plugs. You can read all about the preparing of our mushroom logs in our Learning To Grow Our Own Mushrooms post.
After we finished our logs, they got to relax in a nice shady spot in the woods. When about eight months had passed, our friend Ron “Mushroom Man” Cabe said they were ready to soak — because to actually get the mushrooms to grow, they need to soak in some kind of water. So we headed down to the farm, and the logs got plopped down into a nice deep spot in the creek. The logs soaked for a couple of days. We put them in on Saturday afternoon and left them in the creek until Monday afternoon. Then we took them back home to their shady spot in the woods. Well, in a week we found some mushrooms! To celebrate, we had cheese and mushroom omelets with our new mushrooms and fresh eggs from the farm.
We love mushrooms, so we’ve been thinking about growing some different types. We’re always using mushrooms: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If you have ever grown any kind of mushrooms, please let us know what kind and how you grew them. We would love to hear from you!
Photo by Fotolia/twomeercats
