Grow portable mushrooms

Seven Easy Steps:
(Best done in spring or early summer.)
1. Purchase inoculated mushroom dowels, available on-line, from garden centres or through mail-order catalogues.
2. Locate a fresh stump, or cut down alder or similar non-aromatic wood.
3. Cut logs into lengths of 1 to 1.2 m (3 to 4 ft.) and no more than 35 cm (14 in.) in diameter.
4. Use a 5/16” bit in a high-speed drill to drill 5 cm (2 in.) deep holes no more than 10 cm (4 in.) apart, evenly spaced in a diamond pattern along the length and around the full circumference of each log. Insert the inoculated mushroom dowels along the circumference of the stump, between the bark and the heartwood.
5. Cover plugholes lightly with candle wax to keep the pests out.
6. Place your portable mushroom garden in semi-shade.
7. Keep garden slightly moist and within nine to 12 months you’ll be harvesting your own crop of tasty mushrooms.

Logs can be left outdoors over the winter, under a layer of straw, burlap tarp or shade cloth. In areas where winters are exceptionally harsh, portable mushroom gardens can be stored in the greenhouse, barn, garage or other outbuilding.

Surefire Shiitakes
Shiitake mushrooms have been hailed for both their culinary and medicinal benefits in Japan and other parts of Asia for hundreds of years, and their popularity worldwide continues to rise. Found primarily on thicker-barked hardwoods like oak, shiitakes also do well on “scrub” hardwoods like alder. Mycelium is whitish in colour, becoming brown with age. Either stumps or logs can be inoculated. When properly cared for, our hardy strain of Shiitake will begin to fruit in as little as six months, with the most substantial fruiting appearing one year from inoculation.