Foraging Mushrooms and Growing them at home.

 Earlier this spring i posted about plugging mushroom logs. We love mushrooms, enjoy foraging but wanted to try our hand at growing our own. Plugging the logs is really quite easy, and then all you have to do is water occasionally and wait.

 We really were not expecting to see any mushrooms until this coming spring, and were totally surprised when i spotted this log that had been plugged with blue oyster loaded with mushrooms!

The log was covered with beautiful clusters! These are the 'warm blue' Oysters. Which must have been confused by our weird weather. 

We also had a few of the 'cold blue' oyster mushrooms come up randomly. 

The first log that kenan plugged when he took a  mushroom workshop  over a year ago has produced a mushroom here and there. Not a big flush, but still nice to get a few. We plugged several more shiitake logs this spring, so i'm looking forward to getting a real harvest. We really enjoy the flavor of the shiitake.

Even though we are working to farm our own mushrooms, i still love to forage. This fall there was a beautiful crop of Shaggy manes that came up on the edge of our land.  These are a delicate mushroom and don't keep well. So you don't want to pick them unless you plan to eat them immediately. They are very delicious though and are a new favorite.

i can't wait to see how the mushroom logs do this spring and fall, when we should really start seeing some mushrooms! i can't remember all the varieties we plugged, but it was a bunch!   i'm already looking forward to morel season as well, i really enjoy my time in the woods mushroom hunting. It's so much fun to find them.  i'll update more with our mushroom plugging progress as soon as we start seeing more mushrooms coming up. All of the plugs we bought came from Mushroom Mountain and we are super happy with all of them. If your interested in growing mushrooms, check out their site for supplies and information to get you started!