Shitake Mushrooms!

Last May I innoculated a log from a Maple tree that I chopped down in the back yard.

I used shitake plug spawn that came in the form of short dowel rods.

I drilled holes in the log and drove the dowels in with a hammer. I was supposed to put melted wax over each of the dowel holes but I didn't do that step.

I wasn't sure that they were ever going to produce any mushrooms but today we got our first shitakes to my amazement! People throw around the term "set it and forget it" a lot, but this was truly that. I had totally forgotten about the inoculated log.

So about ten months have elapsed since the log was inoculated. We only got three good sized ones today, but there are some more that will probably be ready in just a couple of days.

This was pretty exciting considering it was totally unexpected. Shitakes are damn good sauteed in butter!