Fall Events and Forays

Fall is in the air!  Days are still warm and balmy, but evening comes on a bit more quickly each day, and the night temperatures are dropping into the mid and low '40's.  It won't be long before we abandon our summer gardens and dust off our mushroom hunting gear.

I (Dan Steeby) will be taking over maintenance of this website, and hopefully I'll have enough to say to keep this blog going as well . . .  I've had a good summer with a few cultivation projects.  I purchased some mushroom kits from Fungi Perfecti at the Ostrom's Mushroom Festival (as their booth was right next to ours), and have been enjoying watching a large reishi mushroom grow from one of the blocks.  This mushroom is much different in just about every way than the oysters and shiitake I usually grow.  First of all, the growing time for a single fruiting body is up to 6 months!  Shiitake and oysters just pop up out of nowhere and are often ready to harvest in a matter of days.  But besides being a lesson in patience, it is really an amazing mushroom to see.  I'm hoping it will make a delicious tea around February or so!

The shiitake kit I bought is also doing well.  I let it 'go dormant' for a couple months while I tended to other things in life, but have started another flush on it and am counting over a dozen mushrooms so far.  These shiitake kits are great performers.  I've been able to get a half dozen flushes at least from each kit I've worked with so far, which equates to well over 50 delicious mushrooms.  And as always, I'm sure my technique could be improved, which would result in an even greater return.  If you've ever thought about growing mushrooms for fun, I'd highly recommend the shiitake kits from Fungi Perfecti!

Another fun event was our Fall Picnic, in which I lead a class on growing oyster mushrooms.  Everyone present was able to make one or more oyster mushroom kits to take home, hopefully people have been getting some nice mushrooms from them!  If you were at that event, please take a minute to comment on this blog article and let me know what came of your kit!  Mine are ready to fruit, but I've been postponing it by keeping my kits in a cool closet until I have room for them in my fruiting chambers.  Oysters are even easier to grow than shiitake, so I highly recommend them to beginners as well.

But I'm ready for fall!  I've enjoyed gardening all summer, and will miss my little "40-square-feet of paradise" (also known as the raised bed garden that my apartment complex lets me garden in) as the temperature drops and my tomatoes wilt, but at the same time I know that those chanterelles and boleletes are coming up somewhere out there, waiting to be found.  I've thouroughly enjoyed foraying with the Mushroom Club for the past 2 years, and hope to continue to improve in my hunting and identification skills in the years to come.  It's definately a "learned" skill-- for adults at least-- the art of staring at the ground as you walk, and seeing all those small, well disguised mushrooms at your feet as you go by.  Even in "off seasons" when no edible mushrooms commonly grow, I can't help but watch the ground closely whenever I'm out walking or hiking.  I always see something!

Here's to hoping for a great fall season, some exciting forays, some new friends joining the club, and gaining a deeper appreciation for the mycological world around us.