Mushroom Logs

One project that I was able to squeeze in was inoculating some logs for shiitake mushrooms. I cut these logs back in December, so I only needed to take a couple of hours away from our bathroom remodel on a pleasant April afternoon.

This will be the third time trying to grow mushrooms, and the results have been mixed. The first time, I cut oak logs in November from a tree that fell into our hayfield. Those logs produced a lot of mushrooms. The second time, I cut logs from an ironwood tree that I felled in March, during the maple syrup season. We are going on our third year and so far those logs have not produced any mushrooms. Our theory is that the summer we inoculated these logs, we had a severe drought. Mushrooms need water, so that may have been the problem.

This time, I am hoping that cutting the logs in the fall, along with adequate rain, will bring us mushrooms next year. I also bought specific strains of shiitake mushrooms (Wild West and Native Harvest) suited to warmer, drier weather. As this has been one of the driest Aprils I can remember, we may need to rely on our choice of mushroom strains instead of the weather.