Garden Oysters

These first two pictures are the first oysters to grow out of a log I inoculated with spored oil.
The second two are yummy oysters growing out of the stump of an Oak tree which used to grow out of my deck, but fell down 5 years ago.

David's Kombucha Recipie

(For 20 liters finished kombucha)

Materials:
6 liter glass carboy with air lock
Tube to siphon during bottling
20 liters Mineral Water
1600 g sugar
1 box celestlial seasonings "Fast Lane" or "Morning Thunder" tea
5 4l jugs or other bottles
2-4 L Kombucha Mother (see below)

Brewing:
Combine 4 L water, tea, and sugar in stock pot
bring slowly to a boil
keep at a simmer for at least 15 min to "sterilize"
let cool and add to remaining water already in carboy

once cool to the touch (many hours)
add 1/2 gal "Mother"

Bottling
Once bubbling stops and air lock slows down (<1>Kombucha Mother
This is a mini-recipe to increase the available volume of Kombucha culture
To get sufficient Kombucha starter, I purchase commercial Kombucha
This comes in 355 mL bottles
So, Make 3.5 L of tea with 100 g/L sugar,
once cool to touch, add entire bottle of commercial Kombucha (e.g. http://www.gtskombucha.com/kombucha.html)
Allow to sit until bubbling subsides
---------------------

While we're talking kombucha, these are my two favorite pre-made kombucha drinks:
http://www.gtskombucha.com/
http://www.wonderdrink.com/
aaron

more oyster pics

Kombucha

Photos of David's recent Kombucha harvest.

Backyard Mushrooms

Anyway, a little sprinkle last night and some cool 60 degree weather brought us about what looks like a 1/2 pound of Oyster mushrooms. If you look closely you'll see another one about to poke its head out of the bark.





I poured some spored oil on this stump about a year and a half ago.







These suckers are as big as the palm of my hand.

Malty Mushrooms

Great article on using brewery wastes(malt grains) for use as a substrate to grow mushrooms. submitted to me by chris32.

Green Construction with Mushrooms?

Check out this cool link to an Associated Press article on eco-friendly insulation.

Bradford Pear Stumps

David, standing by some of the bradford pear stumps we innoculated today.

We used dowels innoculated with an Oyster strain obtained from Omon at NC A&T

there is David kneeling in the background.The whiteness of the stumps is old parafin wax left over from making candles.

This is the only stump that was innoculated with a Shiitake strain as it was isolated away from the other stumps.

Original Gangsta Dave

OG David, after innoculating some logs, and covering them with sawdust.

Shiitake Harvest

Wow, so we had a lot of rain last weekend. These logs are about 2 years old, and they are starting to produce nicely. I would say I just picked about 3-4 pounds of mushrooms last night, and I have more to that were not quite ready. Just last month I harvested about 2 pounds.

Stump Innoculation

This is a stump Alex and I found, and inoculated it with Hericium abietis: The Conifer Coral Mushroom
-grows exclusively on conifers and is very similar in appearance to Hericium erinaceus. Native to western North America, the Conifer Coral Mushroom has a delicate and pleasant flavor.

Oysters in the Park

It has been way to long since my last post. These are beautiful oysters we (me and Alex) found at one of my favorite spots. It was hot and muggy day, and the mushrooms were just beginning to be devoured by some unwelcome guests.

Fairy Ring

Here is Leo in the middle of a Fairy Ring of Green Spored Parasol, or Lepiota. We spotted this on the way to a dinner party, however these are not friendly mushrooms to invite to dinner. To quote David Arora;

Fairy rings occur where there is an even distribution of nutrients in the
soil and the mushroom mycelium can spread outward in all directions, growing
larger each year and periodically producing mushrooms on its fringes.

 

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.

Welcome to my Blog.

I will be documenting my activites in the sprit of Guerilla Gardening. I am creating a new term, "Guerilla Shrooming". I have done google search, and a yahoo search, and it does not show up, especially in reference to gourmet mushrooms, or non psylocibes.

I have already found a couple of abandoned, and recently "produced" tree stumps upon which I will inoculate with mushroom spawn.

I plan to describe how to do this successfully, document my mistakes, and how to have a backup supply of equipment ready to go upon a moments notice.

Be forwarned, I will also post the guerilla gardening that occurs as well.