200 ANGLE - SHIITAKE AB

Discover the pleasure of seeing mushrooms grow in your garden thanks to the pegs seeded with shiitake mycellium.

This fun and easy to implement technique is not complicated but requires patience and respecting the following steps for good mushroom development. Shiitake or shitaké is very popular for its great gastronomic qualities, it is said to have dietary and medicinal virtues.

Nicknamed "longevity mushrooms", it has anti-cholesterol, anti-tumor, anti-stress qualities, etc. My ankles are not covered with mycelium, what should I do? If you do not see any mycelium when you receive your ankles, be patient, it will develop. Store your bag without opening it or moving the ankles, at room temperature in the light but not direct. Storing the ankles before use It is possible to store the ankles for a month in the refrigerator with the bag unopened. Step 1: when should you put the ankles in the stumps? The best time to inoculate logs with shiitake starts in November and ends in April. If you decide to inoculate them in December or January, the logs can stay outside, sheltered from the wind and sun, during the incubation phase so that the mycelium develops properly. For the growth of the mycelium, a temperature of 22°C is ideal, but at lower temperatures, it still grows, but more slowly. The pegs will adapt well to cold and frost. Step 2: which wood stumps to use? You can use stumps and trunks of oak (sesame and pedunculate), birch but also beech, chestnut, alder, cherry or hazel, freshly cut (3 months) from 80 to 120 cm in length. Regarding the diameter of the logs, for shiitake logs between 10 and 17 cm in diameter give the best harvests. If you use logs larger than 25-30 cm, the first harvest can take up to 2 and a half years after inoculation. Recommended wood species: Beech, oak, alder, birch, ash, poplar, lime and chestnut. Step 3: how to make the holes and put in place the mycelium pegs? Drill staggered holes 9 mm in diameter using a drill and then gently hammer in the mycelium pegs. There should be no space between the pegs and the wood. Water the logs. The wood should be stacked away from wind and sun. Sometimes, a fence around the pile is necessary. The top remains free so that rain can fall on the wood. During a dry period, the logs will need to be watered from time to time to maintain their humidity. Step 4: Shiitake development Heat, humidity and darkness are very important parameters in the development of the mycelium. Shiitake peg logs should be incubated in a space where the temperature is at most 24/25°C. Its cultivation requires a little light. So place the logs in a shady place, avoid cellars where the humidity is indeed high but where the light is too low. The shiitake mycelium needs 16 to 18 months to develop and completely invade the wood. After 16/18 months the mycelium on the surface of the logs turns brown, this is the moment when it can start to produce shiitakes. For the mushrooms to develop, a change of conditions is necessary: ​​the formation of shiitakes can be induced by soaking the logs in water overnight. Soaking can only be done after 16-18 months of incubation, not earlier. Place the logs in your garden, in a place out of the wind and always in the shade, never leave the logs in direct sunlight. (Temperature between 16 and 24 ° C). Stack the logs without tightening them. Make sure your logs are constantly moist (but not flooded). After soaking, the mushrooms will appear about 10 days later. When the harvest is finished, the next soaking can be done 10 weeks later. This method, which allows you to control the fruiting period, is only suitable for shiitake. Thus, mushrooms can be harvested for 4 years, 2 or 3 times a year, from June to October. If you prefer not to soak the logs, the harvest is spread over 7-10 years, but the quantities are smaller. When the cultivation is finished, the wood can be left to dry and burned in the fireplace.