Many people incorrectly assume that growing your own mushrooms is difficult. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you can grow a carrot, or a potato, you can definitely grow your own mushrooms at home (or on the farm).
The hardest part of growing mushrooms is in fact the waiting.
That’s because it does take some time to grow specific varieties (in some cases an entire year before they’ll start producing). But the good news is, once you’ve done the preparation once, you can be producing fresh delicious mushrooms for years to come with further little work required on your behalf, other than reaping the rewards of a new harvest!
Below is a very simple example of growing beautiful shiitake mushrooms that anyone can replicate. The technique being used here is referred to as “log inoculation” – basically that means you introduce “mushroom spores” into a log, and then wait for them to spread (infect) the entire log. Once they have, you’ll then end up with your own delicious home grown mushrooms.
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The first step is to collect some hardwood. Below is a photo showing the staged hardwood, it’s roughly 4′ long, trimmed and ready for inoculation…
Once you have the logs ready, it’s time to drill some holes. It’s into these holes that you’ll inject the shiitake mushroom spores which will eventually spread throughout each log. Here a 10,000 RPM drill is set to drill holes to the same depth…
And here are the prepared logs. The holes are drilled approximately 6″ apart with following rows staggered approximately 3″ apart…
The next step is is to introduce the shiitake sawdust spawn into the holes. This spawn will multiple throughout the logs over time…
Here we see some of the tools of the trade, it’s a “Palm Style Brass Inoculator”. You simply to pound the inoculator in the sawdust spawn (which has been emptied from the bag above into a bucket) to load it…
The inoculator itself is just a tad bigger than the hole width drilled into the hardwood logs. You simply set in place over a hole and give it a couple “whacks” to fill the hole with spawn…
Once all of the holes have been filled with spawn, it’s time to seal them up. This forces the spawn to work it’s way down into and throughout the log (essentially feeding off the log itself). This is done using cotton balls and melted cheese wax…
The holes and any voids in the logs (knot holes, trimmed branches) are immediately sealed with wax. The ends of the logs themselves are also sealed with wax to help maintain a high moisture content within the logs…
Here’s a close up of a hole that’s been filled with mushroom spawn and sealed with wax…
Once all logs have been prepared and sealed, they are then crib stacked and left alone for a year to allow for the spawn to make a mycelium run throughout the log / bolt…
After a year the logs / bolts are soaked / submerged for 24 hours in a water trough. The logs / bolts are then “lean to” stacked…
Water sprinklers are utilized during the fruiting / flushing process to keep the mushrooms from drying out…
And within 7 days after soaking the logs, young shiitake mushrooms start to appear. They can now be picked (referred to as “flushing”) as required…
Once picked / flushed the logs need to rest for 8 weeks to allow for the mycelium to recharge. After 8 weeks they are ready for another “dunk” / soaking to encourage further growth…
Look how beautiful shiitake mushrooms are…
And there you have it…
A deliciously simple method of growing beautiful shiitake mushrooms!
Again, this process is really simple, the hardest part is of course the “waiting” – in this case an entire year, but it’s well worth it.
And keep in mind, you don’t need to setup 250 logs (as was the case in this example) unless you plan on selling them down at the local farmers market. Just 2 or 3 logs kept in a shady corner of your garden will produce enough mushrooms for an entire family for several months.
If you’d like more information about growing mushrooms, here’s a set of excellent step by step videos that cover growing many different varieties of mushrooms and the various techniques that you can use. Once you get started, you’ll wonder why you haven’t introduced these into your gardening sooner!
If you like this story, be sure to share it with your friends and inspire someone you know. Anything becomes possible with just a little inspiration…
