Ganoderma Lucidum

Here are some beautiful mushrooms I found this week, Ganoderma Lucidum, also known as Reishi and Ling Shu. These have been used and revered in Chinese Medicine for thousands of years, and finally western medicine is catching up, and creating some research and evidence on the medicinal effects of this mushroom. It is too woody to eat, but can be dried for storage and you can make a tea with it 

Shiitake Logs

These are my Shiitake Logs I have at home. I grabbed these logs one day from a tree that was cut down in my neighborhood. About half of the logs in the picture on the right are proffesionally done by the guys at NC A&T, and the other half are ones that I made using plug spawn from Fungi Perfecti, and about 3 logs were made stuffing bits of really old log mycelium (from 5-7 year old logs) into cuts made with a chainsaw. They are covered up right now with burlap sacks, and are living next to a few boxes filled with more plug spawn in process. More about that Later.
aaron 

Laetiporus

I just found these Laetiporus ("chicken of the woods"). They are beautiful, but rather old, so I will probably use them to inoculate a huge pile of wood chips I have located. These weigh at least 5lbs apeice. I often use David Arora's pocket guide, and today it is for size reference. 

Chicken of the Woods

Today, Andra and I inoculated a stump with Laetiporus, "chicken of the woods". First we drilled holes, then we hammered in some inoculated dowels, then sealed them with wax, and finally a prayer to the mushroom God.

We also saw a huge pile of wood chips nearby that we will revisit with some more spawn.

Recent Mushroom Hunt

these are some beautiful Oysters Mushrooms (Pleurotus Ostreatus) from a recent hunt last Sunday. I found about 4 pounds growing out of an abandoned oak trunk in a public park. The picture only shows about 1/4 of the mushrooms They were sticking out of the top, and I had to drive my car in the park so I could stand on it to reach them. Yum. Amazing flavor, as these no long exist.
I broke off a couple of pieces of the wood that these oysters were growing out of to cultivate for new plugs or spawn.