Oyster, Shiitake and Shroom hunts OH MY

The oyster mushrooms are starting to grow rapidly now and I have two maple logs inoculated with Shiitake plug spawn. We might have a few Shiitakes this fall, but I highly doubt it because it is so late in the season already. Only 20 some odd growing days left...so short here!!

Mike wants to go to the local Arboretum to hunt for some puff ball shrooms. He seems really excited about all this mycology I am getting into. I hope to fund some Hen of the Woods as well.

Meika is settling in just fine and is talking ever more...LMAO!! She is a hoot!

Until next time...

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Eclipsia?

Here are some photos of the new bird in the house. She is loverly with a sweet disposition. She's not much of a talker right now...she'll let off a peep here and there. She looks so much like Merlin with her crest up. I took a shot of her in front of Merlins Shrine. Wow. She is just a wee bit lighter. I'm thinking of another name for her...Eclipsia. How does that sound? LOL


An update on the shroom growins. The first photo is the bottom of the water plant basket with my small starter batch of elm oysters. The white is the mushroom mycelium.

The box with just newspaper strips is also starting to grow like crazy. I sprayed down the sides with water to encourage mycelium growth on the box. They were cutting some trees down in my nieghborhood and I was able to swipe a large piece of maple to grow Shiitake on....when the plugs arrive. I ordered them before the holiday and the darned place is closed till this friday. Although they said that orders and shipments would not be halted....I think they took a holiday too! My last package from them didn't take this long to arrive. So the log is sitting in the barrel of rain water to rehydrate. Maybe I can find some cheese wax around town to seal the edges with...or maybe my package will come soon. One can only hope.

I kept wishing, hoping, and asking to find some fresh cut hardwood....another wish granted!

As for spinning and knitting...I'm not much into it anymore. Right now it just bores me to tears. I'm more interested in mushrooms....adn playing World of Warcraft. LOL

Until next time...

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My Mycology grows...

Okay we have a little update on my Mycology studies and experiments. The basket shows my first straw inoculation set in a mesh water plant basket that is about 12 x 12 inches. I used the teks shown here at http://www.mushroomvideos.com/ . The straw was heat pasteurized in lime water. The jar next to it shows I have a bit of Elm oyster grain spawn left. My iron cauldron sits on top of the basket to help keep some moister in. The lid is from a different container. I took a peek in it today and the mycelium is growing out onto the straw. In a couple weeks we should have a bunch of shrooms to eat. I then took some of the left over grain spawn and inoculated three more jars of grain so I can make a "mushroom log" outta hay. I have a big ol bag of hay...I dunno if I will get to using it all up! But I still had more grain spawn left-over so I decided to try something a little more "outside the box" so to speak.
So I read in a book called Mycelium Running that mushrooms are great recyclers so I took the box my replacement UV Heat bulb came in, boiled some hand shredded newspaper in lime water, and layered it inside the box with the last of the grain spawn.
We'll see how this works out.
The close up of straw inside the bag is a photo of the elm mycelium taking hold inside. The white blotch is the growing mycelia.

Until next time...

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Aye! There be Mycelium in me kitchen and a Hawk in a tree!

Mycelium: Mycelium is the vegetative part of a fungus, consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like hyphae.

Hyphae: A hypha (plural hyphae) is a long, branching filamentous cell of a fungus.

I've made several different methods of growing my Oyster shrooms. The first method (Photo 1) is on PDA (Potato Dextrose Agar) that was inoculated with a spore syringe that came with my Mushroom kit from sporeworks.com. Ironically I used regular sugar because I didn't know what dextrose was or where to get it. I now know that it is available through brew shops and we just happen to have a local wine and hop shop!

I inoculated two jars like this, but only this one seems to show any growth. And wow...what growth it has! It keeps growing and now...just a few hours later, the mycelia is growing up the sides of the jar! How cool is that! I am preparing grain to transfer a segment of this luscious growth to, and then...I will transfer the grain spawn (grain colonized by the mycelium) to a basket full of pasteurized, chopped, straw. Sounds like a lot work right? Not really. It happens in stages and the straw stage is still a few weeks off. I also plan makes some transfers to agar and attempt to gain hypha as this is just cottony growth that may, or may not fruit well. I shall keep notes and post me findings. I am loving this! I even built myself a positive air glove box with a $30 hepa air filter machine from Farm and Fleet. It seems to work really well in keeping contams (contamination like mold spores I don't wanna grow...like green mold or black pin mild....ichy stuff). I'll have to post about excursion that next.

The second photo if the Mushroom grow bag that I ordered from sporeworks.com. The white patch you see on the grain is Blue Oyster Mycelia growing. It too is taking off like a bat outta hell!

Third photo is of a transfer I did from a Pearl or Phoenix (not sure which) Oyster I purchased at the local farmers market. The cheapest way to expand my 'shroom culturing! This is what is termed as "cloning" in Mycology. The wispy white strands coming from the piece of fungus flesh is new mycelia growth. YAY! I took the biggest shroom of the bunch I got and cloned it. If anyone who reads me blog cares to get into Mycology and wants a free culture, just ask! It's easy as pie...although some kinds of pie are a lot of work...but this is a no-bake kinda deal...LMAO!! Pun-pun-puUUUuuun!

The fourth photo is a BRF-Tekmethod of cultivating shrooms. Lots of growth here! This can be crumbled and spread out on another substrate to colonize and fruit.

Fifth photo is of a red-Tail Hawk that was just outside our apartment, perched in a tree. There was all sorts of racket coming from a few Robins and Cardinals so I went out to investigate. WOW! What a beauty!

I'll keep this up to date as my shrooming adventures continue! I love summer!

I went and purchased some diatomaceous earth to put in the garden today because the leaves of my bush beans are getting chewed on by slugs I think. Several seedlings have been destroyed. I'll post photos of zee garden tomorrow as a well. I also bought a venus fly trap plant...I love them things...and maybe this time I can keep it alive over-winter!

Until next time...

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Mycology Fun!

WOOOooo!! I have shrooms growing!

And I am learning how important it is to have as sterile an environment for transfers as possible! Please examine exhibit "A"...a petri dish writhing with every other sort of germies but what I want to grow! LOL I did this transfer (the dark spot is a piece of mushroom flesh)in open air on purpose just to see just how many contaminents are in the kitchen. (I love auto save! Auto save saved my post after IE exploded, again!). Apparently there are a lot! It's very interesting none-the-less. I noticed my other two jars seem to have something growing on the surface of the agar as well....similar to what you see in the petri dish. So I have a new plan. I whipped everything down with bleach water first off. Then I am preparing jars differntly. The hole in the middle of the lids are for inserting cotton which will act as a contam (contamination) barrier and as venilation. After pouring in some zapped agar solution (my bulk container was refridgerated and thus the solution hardened) and replacing the lids complete with plugged holes, I then wrapped the jar lids in foil. This serves two purposes (as I read from various sources). First it prevents moisture from the pressure cooker bath from obsorbing into the cotton, and second it acts like a barrier to the outside environment during transfer to the sterilized glove box chamber. I am cooking the jars for 45 min to 1 hour to further destroy any contams in the agar. I think that I did not cook it for long enough the first time.



My Oyster 'Shroom "kit" is showing signs of growth after only 12 hours from innoculation! It's the small fuzzy white patch just above the innoculation disc. YAY!! At least something is growing like it should!

This weekend I plan on going to a local source for used lab supplies ( a popular source as well, Called UW SWAP). I also plan to buy some organic rye berries and larger mason jars.

Until next time...

***All content is Copyright year and date of posting, and are the sole property of C4G/CCW unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this website(text, photo's, etc)is strictly prohibited(linking to the post is OK).***