Growing Shiitake Mushrooms!

A few weeks before Christmas, I got a text advertising a mushroom growing kit from Territorial Seeds. That is something that I have wanted to try so I forwarded the text to my husband as a hint for what I might like for Christmas. He's good at catching my hints so I got a big block of some soil mixture infused with Shiitake mushroom spores for Christmas. I didn't have time to start it before a short trip we took after Christmas so I put it in the fridge as per the instructions.

About a week later, I got it out and set it up. I had to get it really wet first and then spray it with distilled water a couple of times a day to keep it at high humidity. This is what it looked like on January 5th with the mushrooms just starting to sprout:

Most of the time, I kept it under a plastic lid so it would stay really humid in there.

The other day my mushrooms were ready so I harvested them!

This is what the underside of a ripe mushroom looks like. Notice the "gills."

I sauteed a couple of them the other night and they were firmer than I expected. My sister-in-law who has a lot of Japanese ancestry tells me that Shiitake mushrooms are firmer than the white mushrooms I usually buy. So tonight I made a soup with them. You can't see them in the bowl but they're in there.

I also sauteed some tatsoi from my cold frame that I planted back in August. I decided to harvest everything yesterday since it's supposed to get pretty cold this weekend. It was all quite delicious.

This was a pretty easy but very expensive way to grow shiitake mushrooms. The block cost $50 with shipping and we got about 12 very large mushrooms. I had hoped to get a second crop which requires soaking in non-chlorinated water for 24 hours and then setting it out like before. Unfortunately the water we soaked it in probably had some chlorine in it so it probably won't work. And the second crop was not guaranteed to begin with. My son told me about a workshop where you can learn how to grow mushrooms at home which I would imagine would be cheaper than how I did it. So maybe I'll try again!

Comments

Visiting Susquehanna: The Priesthood Restoration Site

On our way home from Palmyra, we decided to go a couple of hours out of our way to visit the recently opened Priesthood Restoration Site along the Susquehanna River. This is where we believe that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery received the keys of the Aaronic Priesthood from John the Baptist which gave them the authority to baptize. This site also has the restored Isaac and Elizabeth Hale home where Joseph and Emma lived for a year as well as the home where Joseph and Emma lived on their own. We spent a couple of hours there and I wouldn't have minded a few more minutes but we had a long way to go that night. It's a beautiful setting, very much in rural Pennsylvania. However, on the day we were there, cars at a racetrack nearby were detracting from the peace and quiet. I'm guessing that's not as big of a problem on weekdays. The Hale Family was quite well-off for their day so their home was probably nicely decorated with wallpaper and carpet. ...

Book Review: Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

This is a juvenile fiction book about a young girl named Melody with severe cerebral palsy. Her body doesn't allow her to feed herself, speak, or do much at all. She's very intelligent with a photographic memory but she can't really communicate. Finally, in 5th grade, she gets a "Medi-Talker" which is a computer that speaks what she types in. Finally she has a voice. This book explores what it is like to be severely physically disabled but not mentally disabled. It seems like one of the most frustrating of all scenarios. She is completely aware of all the cruelty (subtle and otherwise) that her classmates inflict on her because they don't really want to include her in their activities. One of the saddest moments in the book comes when she realizes that every one of her special ed classmates is kind, where the "normal" ones are not. Who really has the worse disability? The book was a quick read and fairly enjoyable. Wha...

Hansen Family Plot in the Provo Cemetery

On Memorial Day this year, our family went to the Provo Cemetery, as we do almost every year. We spent some time at the Hansen Family plot which contains the grave of my 2nd great-grandparents, Peter and Mary Hansen. They both emigrated from Denmark with their spouses to Utah. My grandfather lost his first wife Ane to cholera on the plains outside of St. Joseph, Missouri, along with three of his little boys within a very short time--about one month. It's a sad story but it's also one of admirable resilience. He brought his one surviving son, Jorgen, to Utah. He married his second wife Maren (Anglicized to Mary) some 9 years later in Utah She had been married before but lost her first husband at an unknown date. I wish I knew more about her but she left very few records, although I could do more research! Peter and Maren had 6 more children together. The youngest two were twins, Enoch and Ephraim. Ephraim is my great-grandfather and is buried in California. He is the father of ...

Search This Blog