
Update on gash inoculation method
The shiitakes aren't the
only mushrooms who have decided
to start fruiting.
I plucked the Blue Dolphin oyster mushroom below off one of our totems, and figured that was a good
excuse to go check out wild logs. It turns out none of the wild
oysters were fruiting, but I didn't mind since the wildflowers were in
full bloom.
Now that our totems have been
in place for a couple of years, I feel ready to pass judgement on the
totems and/or the easy,
gash inoculation method. I suspect the latter
is the reason the bark has flaked off these logs much faster than from
our other box-elder mushroom logs, meaning that we're already nearing
the end of the totem logs' fruiting life.
Since I started the
spawn myself, I'm not out any cash, but I don't think I'd recommend the
gash method of inoculation if you're trying to make storebought spawn
give you your full money's worth. Meals from these three logs
might have amounted to two or three total, versus box-elder logs
inoculated with Blue Dolphin spawn in February 2009 that were still
churning out loads of mushrooms last fall. With mushroom logs,
the amount of food you get back does seem to be proportional to the
amount of effort you put in.
Our chicken waterer is the POOP-free treat for
healthy chickens and happy chicken-keepers.
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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.
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