50 ANKLES - SHIITAKE AB
Discover the joy of watching mushrooms grow in your garden with shiitake mushroom mycelium seeded pegs. This fun and easy-to-use technique isn't complicated, but it does require patience and careful attention to the following steps for the mushrooms to thrive.
Shiitake mushrooms are very popular for their culinary qualities, and they are said to have dietary and medicinal properties. Nicknamed "longevity mushrooms," they have anti-cholesterol, anti-tumor, anti-stress, and other properties.
My ankles are not covered with mycelium, what should I do?
If you don't see any mycelium when you receive your dowels, be patient; they will develop. Store your bag without opening it or moving the dowels, at room temperature in light but not direct sunlight. Storing the dowels before use It is possible to store the dowels for one month in the refrigerator with the bag unopened.
Planting the dowels
Step 1: When should the dowels be put in the stumps?
The best time to inoculate logs with shiitake mushrooms is from November to the end of April. If you decide to inoculate them in December or January, the logs can remain outside, sheltered from wind and sun, during the incubation phase so that the mycelium can develop properly. A temperature of 22°C is ideal for mycelium growth, but at lower temperatures, it still grows, but more slowly. The dowels will adapt well to cold and frost.
Step 2: Which wood stumps should you use?
You can use stumps and trunks of oak (gall and pedunculate), birch, but also beech, chestnut, alder, cherry or hazel, freshly cut (3 months old) and 80 to 120 cm long. 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 types: Beech, oak, alder, birch, ash, poplar, lime and chestnut.
Step 3: How to make the holes and install the mycelium dowels? Drill staggered holes 9 mm in diameter using a drill, then gently hammer in the mycelium dowels. There should be no gaps between the dowels 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 dry periods, the logs will need to be watered from time to time to keep them moist.
Step 4: Shiitake development
Heat, humidity, and darkness are very important parameters in the development of the mycelium. Shiitake dowel logs should be incubated in a space where the temperature is at most 24/25°C. Its cultivation requires a little light. Therefore, place the logs in a shady place, avoiding cellars where the humidity is indeed high but where the light is too low. 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 begin to produce shiitakes.
For mushrooms to grow, a change in conditions is required: shiitake mushrooms 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 spot 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 loosely. Make sure your logs are constantly moist (but not flooded). After soaking, the mushrooms will appear about 10 days later.
Once the harvest is complete, the next soaking can be done 10 weeks later. This method, which allows for controlling 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 can be 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.
