Growing Shiitake Mushrooms

2 min

In late July, some friends and I in British Columbia, Canada – where I have a summer home – decided to prepare alder logs for growing shiitake mushrooms. A pleasant, productive way to spend an afternoon. And in July of 2013, we finally harvested and feasted on the mushrooms of our labors!

Read the full story: The Great Shiitake Experiment

Learn more: All About Mushrooms

The alder logs require regular watering in order for the shiitake mushrooms to sprout and grow.
As you can see, they are starting to produce "primordia" (young pinhead mushrooms) - 10 times more than last year.
Harvested the season's first shiitakes! These will be the center of a tasty dinner.
Since I grow these organically, I must use a copper screen to prevent slugs from getting to the shiitake mushrooms.
After a few days the shiitake mushrooms are almost ready for picking!
I hope to have a LOT of shiitake in a few days.
My first home-grown shiitake for dinner, with fresh sugar snap peas. The pathetic little shiitakes in the back were purchased from the store. (Garden snob...)
British Columbia is a great place for shiitake mushrooms to grow because of the wet climate.
Shiitake mushrooms can grow seemingly overnight, so it is always exciting to check the logs each day.
Last July we drilled holes in these alder logs and pounded shiitake spore plugs into each hole.
After a full year and regular watering, the first shiitake! Hopefully these logs will produce two flushes of shiitakes per year, for seven years.
The first shiitake mushroom was last night's dinner. It was very tasty.
Update from 2013: Back at my summer home in British Columbia, I soaked the shiitake logs that were prepared in the summer of 2011.
The alder trees were felled and cut to length 3 days earlier. Conrad Dombrowski trims the ends of the logs to make them smooth. This makes them easier to seal with wax later.
I used a power drill - visible in the background - to drill holes spaced roughly three inches apart all around each log. Then I drove in shiitake spore plugs with a rubber mallet.
The plugs must be spaced and inserted with care.
We prepared 16 logs on this day. I'm almost done driving the plugs into place. Nori Fletcher, in the background, is painting melted soy wax on the plugs.
My friend, master gardener Nori Fletcher, seals the ends of the pounded-in spore plugs by painting on melted soy wax. She covers the log ends with wax as well. This seals in moisture to help the spores grow, and also keeps out foreign spores.
From the left, here's me, Charris Ford, Conrad Dombrowski and Ajax, my Rhodesian ridgeback, with the finished log pile, known as a "rick." This is a shady spot that's dampened by an automatic sprinkler on a regular basis, which will keep the logs moist. Next spring, we'll soak the logs for 24 hours, and should then start getting mushrooms. Each log should produce two flushes of mushrooms a year for up to seven years.