
First spring mushrooms
I'd been watching a wild
oyster mushroom budding out of a fallen snag in the floodplain for a
couple of weeks, but something ate it before I thought it was big
enough to pick. So I was thrilled to find an oyster mushroom
growing on a stump on the campus of the University of North
Carolina-Asheville during the Organic Grower's School. I broke
the oyster loose and put it in my coat pocket, where I surprised myself
throughout the day by putting my hand in the pocket and touching a
damp, slimy object.
Home at last, the mushroom
was a bit battered and dirty from its long ride, but I figured it was
in good enough shape to start up my cardboard
propagation
again. After soaking cardboard, separating the corrugated center
from the flat outer layers and layering the mushroom butts between the
corrugated cardboard sheets, I wandered outside to think about our
cultivated mushrooms. And there I found yet more oysters ready to
eat! Both Pohu and Blue Dolphin had sent out several fruiting
bodies. I used up our last container of frozen mushrooms two
weeks ago and was just wishing for more to go in our lasagna --- good
thing our mushroom logs came through.
Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us:
Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want
to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the
RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.
Required disclosures:
As an Amazon Associate, I earn a few pennies every time you buy
something using one of my affiliate links. Don't worry, though --- I
only recommend products I thoroughly stand behind!
Also, this site has Google ads on it. Third party vendors, including
Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to a
website. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its
partners to serve ads to users based on their visit to various sites.
You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting this site.