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Mushroom Workshop
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Many years
ago when I still lived on the farm, a friend gave me some shiitake
plugs so I could grow my own mushrooms. Unfortunately, neither
one of us really knew anything about how to inoculate logs or even
what kind of logs to use, so nothing ever came from it. It
wasn't until last year that shiitake came back into my life. I
bought a log from Tim Hensley and Jane Post, local mushroom growers,
and I was hooked. |
| Tim and Jane own 150 acres
at the head of a holler east of Berea where they live and grow organic
vegetables and mushrooms. On April 1, they hosted a mushroom
workshop on the farm. I, along with eight other people, took the
workshop and had a ball. This is a picture of the pond bank that
Tim and Jane have converted into a tiered vegetable garden. |
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| We took a tour of the
farm, including a trip up the hill and around the holler, then through
Tim's "mushroom garden." The log lined wooded area is
beside a small creek that drains the holler, shaded and moist, a
perfect nest for the impregnated logs, which were sprouting mushrooms
right and left. Pictured are golden mushrooms and a baby
shiitake just beginning to poke out of a log. Each log bears a
metal tag indicating the specific variety of spawn and the date
inoculated. |
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The working part of the
workshop took place in this barn, which Tim had built from logs he
harvested from the farm and milled into lumber. Guess who had
the job of hauling the logs down off the hillside. |
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One method of impregnating
logs is to drill holes, then insert inoculated sawdust into the holes.
The holes have to be a specific depth, the same as the tool used for
inserting the sawdust. Then the hole is sealed with parafin.
Having a watch cat is also necessary. |
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Plugs can also be used to
fill the holes rather than spawn sawdust. Another method Tim
uses is one he developed himself. A wedge is cut from the log,
then the spawn is placed in the cut, which is then filled with the
sawdust that came from cutting the wedge. Tim wraps the cut with
the ubiquitous duct tape to keep the spawn from drying out.. |
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We spent the rest of the
afternoon drilling, plugging and hammering on logs that would go home
with us. Each participant got shiitake, golden mushroom, lion's
mane and chicken-of-the-woods. |
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While we were working,
Jane was in the kitchen fixing bread dough for pizzas and calzones
made from veggies grown there on the farm. And beside the back
porch, the oven was being fired to 700 degrees. |
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| After the fire had burned
down a bit, Tim raked the coals out, then dusted the inside out with a
wet rag on a pole. It was fascinating watching the dusting
process. He whipped the rag around and around quickly, then
brought it back out to cool before dusting yet again. Then the
the pizzas went in and the door was shut. Cooking only took a
couple of minutes. They came out nicely brown on the bottom, the
cheese and sauce bubbly hot on the top. After all the pizzas
were cooked, the calzones went in along with bread sticks.
Sorry. Picture taking stopped at this point. It took both
hands to eat, and the camera was totally forgotten.
After supper, Tim showed us how to prepare
a bed of wood chips with wine cap mushrooms. Each of us went
home with wine cap inoculated grain and a feed sack full of wood chips
to prepare our own bed. Hopefully this fall there will be
mushrooms. Then he helped us load vehicles with the logs and gave us a
bag full of freshly harvested shiitake to take home and cook.
If you ever get a chance to do a workshop
with Tim and Jane, by all means do! The whole workshop
experience is superb. And I don't think I know a more engaging
or interesting couple. |
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