In 2016 I planned to start a small mushroom (general, funghi) farm. My first interest got me into reading about button mushrooms, but I dropped them very soon for Shitake and Pleurotus. Both could be cultivated on logs. I first bought a book about mushroom cultivation, which gave me a very good inside on howto start my mushroom adventure. From there I found an online shop that sells mushroom brood. I went for grain brood because the slit cut method which I intended to use usually lets the mycelium grow faster than with dowels. I guess that the growing speed comes from the larger contact area the mycelium has to start pentrating the log.
According to the book Pleurotus grows good on a larch. Therefore we cut down one of our larch trees. Actually this tree needed to get out of the small forest because it was growing besides a large pine, making it impossible for the larch to grow any bigger. The cut tree was put on palets so that it had no contact with the wet soil. We didn't want any other than our cultivated funghi to get in before us. The tree was resting there for about 3 weeks before we cut it down to 6 pieces of 1 meter.
While the larch rested I ordered the brood in Germany. And while we were waiting for the brood to arrive we cutted a small birch tree out of a group of 4 (again it had no space to grow) and also got some logs from our neigbhours Aimo and Timo. As I also ordered brood for straw bale growing we drove down to Heikin Leipä to collect some organic straw bales.
Everythings in place, let's get the party started
With the brood arrived, the logs prepared and the straw bale ready we started inocculating. It took us some time to get the right rhythm. Basically inoculating the brood is pretty labour intensive but we got it managed. After we got everything done we put the logs on pallets inside the garage. We also covered them with cardboard and a plastic sheet. As the last frost day was still 4 weeks away the logs had to stay for that time inside.
Once that time past I put everything on paletts beside the barn and covered it again. It takes now 6 month for the Pleurotus. In the meantime I'll check back twice a week for mice or snails.
