SHIITAKE LOGGING.
My eyes are almost never bigger than my plate—I may be a skinny dude, but I can eat. However, as a metaphor for farming, sometimes I can indeed bite off more than I can chew. Case and point? Our shiitake logs.Shiitake mushrooms are commonly cultivated on hard woods like White or Red Oak (among others). The idea is you order spawn from a company (like Field & Forest, where we got ours and where they were extremely helpful over the phone), drill a bunch of holes in a bunch of logs you cut at the end of winter, then inoculate them with the spawn. You then wait a few months for the spawn to inhabit the log (6-9), soak them in water and voila!—you have a flush of fresh mushrooms to eat.Reading through the literature I figured I could get about 20 to 30 logs from a 5.5 lbs bag shiitake spawn so, wanting 50 or 60 logs, we ordered 11 lbs. That seemed logical, right? Here is a concise list of everything that went wrong:1) I cut the logs too short.2) I mistook an Ash Tree for a Red Oak (still working on my winter identifications—finding it much harder without leaves as a clue). Not a huge setback, but notable.3) I didn't have the right size drill bit, and immediately regretted not just ordering one from the company when ours moved slow and mockingly into the log with each hole.4) I didn't have the proper drill. We own a cordless power drill which wouldn't last long so we borrowed a neighbors power drill... which didn't last long. Now back to the cordless which, on a good day, can get us three logs before running out of juice.5) I didn't have the time. It's spring. Why I thought we would have time to do 60 shiitake logs during one of the busiest times of the year, while trying to build a cabin? Momentary insanity.The good news is we have over forty (albeit short) logs done, with 15 left to go. The bad news is we have almost an entire bag of spawn left and no idea what to do with it. So, anyone have any clever ideas? Dormant season is over, so we can't really cut more logs. The bag will only be good for 7 months if refrigerated, so probably only a few months with our high-tech cooler and ice jug system, thus not enough time for the next dormant season to come around. I've saved all of the shavings from the holes and have thought about just inoculating those, but would welcome any ideas from experienced shiitake loggers! What does one do with bonus spawn?- Jesse.
