Mushroom Monday – Growing Shiitaki Mushrooms

Shiitake mushrooms are very easy to grow from kits that are available reasonably inexpensively at the local store. Just follow the directions and you can get several nice crops of fresh delicious mushrooms. I think the flavor is not as strong as dried shiitake but equally as good. I thought I would share some pictures for mushroom Monday.

See more information on: Mushroom-Monday by @valth.

These mushroom pictures were taken almost exactly a year ago by my wife on her iphone:

The mushroom kit came originally looking like a light brown log covered in a dusty looking growth. I soaked it overnight in rainwater weighing it down with a brick. It is made from sawdust but it didn’t say what kind. I think it works the best with rainwater because my mom has tried these kits before and not had near as many mushrooms. (It doesn’t rain much where she lives and I suspect that the tap water she used may have had residue chlorine or other contaminates)

After the sawdust log was done producing flushes of mushrooms I left it to dry out not knowing really what to do with it. I wanted to get a log but didn’t really know what type of wood to get.

This year as I was walking around I kept seeing some logs left over from a tree that was cut down by the bike path. It was public land and it didn’t look like anyone was wanting the logs but I waited a couple weeks to make sure they were up for grabs. Yesterday I found a nice one tossed in the cattails. It was kind of heavy and waterlogged but I carried it back.

The cattails are ready to release their seeds:

Here’s what the cattails looked like earlier in July:

When I got home I put the log out under the berry bushes and placed the dried out mushroom log next to it. If I get a chance I’m going to try to drill a few holes in the log and push some pieces of the brown stuff into the log to hopefully get things started. I don’t know if things will grow after being dried out for so long but hopefully I might get something started.

If I see another kit in the store I would be very temped to get it again – it is very fun to grow and eat your own mushrooms plus I’ve got a log now that I can try to get them started on too.

The the shiitake mushroom kit resting in the shade and soaking in the cool dreary weather:

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Thanks for reading! All pictures are taken by me on my Galaxy S7 except where noted.