Holy Shiitake!

Our first lamb of 2025 was born this week, so if you had any doubts, you can now rest assured that spring has officially arrived. And as if to not be out done by the lamb - our shiitakes have woken up from their winter’s slumber and hit the ground running.

Mushroom farming is, in fact, the perfect antidote to livestock farming. It is, by comparison, a completely stress-free endeavor. When I finish up in the mushroom yard at the end of the day - I just walk away. When I return in the morning, the logs are all exactly as I left them. Always. The mushrooms never escape, they never misbehave, and they never get sick. Best of all, the only predators I have to contend with are; a squirrel who has developed an expensive taste for shiitakes, a chipmunk that has a fondness for our chestnut mushrooms, and my sister, who lives next door.

We have over 1,000 logs inoculated with various types of mushrooms. We have Shiitake, Oyster, Lion’s Mane, Comb Tooth, Chestnut, Maitake, Chicken of the Woods, and Turkey Tail. We also have raised beds inoculated with Morels, Almond Agaricus and Wine Caps.

Each type of mushroom has its own culinary preferences and distinct personality. Shiitakes prefer oak logs but are aggressive and will quickly take over most any hardwood. Hericium mushrooms (lion’s mane and comb tooth) are the most finicky. They prefer beech trees and sugar maples and are so slow to colonize a log, I’m not sure how they have succeeded as well as they have “in the wild”. When we inoculate logs with any Hericium strain, we use twice the amount of spore (mushroom seed), otherwise another mushroom will undoubtably take over.

Wine caps are the least fussy about what they eat and are definitely the most gregarious of all the mushrooms we’ve raised. They’ve quickly spread throughout our mushroom yard and are happily commingling with all the others. Perhaps it’s the wine in their name that makes them so extroverted.

Even within the same species, different strains fruit at different times. Our cool weather shiitakes are fruiting now but will slow down when the temperatures get more summerlike. That’s when our warm weather strains take over and get us through the farmer’s market season.

Highly prized in Japanese cooking, the first and last shiitakes to fruit each season are the Donkos. The fluctuating temperatures of spring and fall weather stresses the cool season mushroom out and intensifies their flavor. Like the arrival of our first lamb in the spring, Donkos are a distinct marker of changing seasons.

Our two border collies always accompany me to the mushroom yard but quickly settle in for the duration. Of all the illogical things I do on a daily basis, moving logs from one pile to another is clearly beyond their comprehension. They know their services won’t be needed but they don’t let me out of their sight. Each dog resting with one eye open, they watch carefully just in case any of our logs look like they are in need of herding.

Welcome “Yoda” - our newborn lamb. Welcome Donkos and the start of another mushroom season. And, of course, welcome Spring - the beginning of everything.