Mushrooms for the Urban Home: Outdoor Inoculated Logs

I really love the idea of foraging and finding food in the wild, maybe it is my Metis roots reviving when I am out in the forest and I can smell the earth and feel the cushion of life under my step. I have been fascinated by the idea of eating mushrooms but terrified that I might be lousy at it and poisoning myself.
When I heard about inoculating logs with specific spores and knowing with certainty what you are harvesting, I was keen to give it a try.

Inoculated logs are easy to get going and take up very little space so can fit easily in an urban or suburban landscape.
Also, logs need to be located in a dark, damp area so if there is a location in your yard that won't grow grass, or already grows mushrooms, that would be a good location.
Imagine if between houses there were little patches of inoculated logs growing mushrooms.

The first step with getting the logs set up is to acquire the logs. You need fresh cut (no more than 6 months old) logs that are about 4-5 inches in diameter and about 4 feet long. If it is fresh cut then then the log likely has more moisture in it and less bugs or mushroom spores.
Hardwood is best and I imagine that it has more for the mushroom to work with. Softwood probably succumbs to rotting quicker than hardwood.
Here I used some branches from an Elm tree that was damaged due to a heavy spring snowfall. They were more than 6 months old so I am not sure if it will work.
After the logs are cut, you drill holes in the log 2 inches apart in a diamond pattern around the log. Drilling instructions with drawings and a drill bit in the right size came with my kit.

I then hammered the spore plugs into each hole so that it was deeper than the bark or at least level with it. After that, I melted some bees wax in a double boiler that I already had acquired for making candles. 

I don't know if there is any poetry about the smell of beeswax melting but it is a fragrance that deserves an epic poem or an album of songs. Ditch the fake household plug-in fragrances and melt some beeswax to make your home smell rich and fresh.

I just painted the wax over each plug with a sponge applicator. It took me a few rows before I realized that I should pain the wax down the length of the log to allow time for the wax to cool. I was going around in circles and wax dripped all over my stove. 

When I looked in my yard for an ideal location, I wanted a place that was shaded, moist and preferably already grew mushrooms. I picked just North of a big Spruce tree as that spot was out of direct sunlight almost all day. It is also not a pathway for ourselves, our dogs or our chickens. 

I placed some wood shavings on the snow bank so that the logs would be on moisture absorbing wood too. I wanted to mimic a forest floor so added some wood to the area. I didn't want to add used chicken bedding because I don't know if any pathogens would be soaked up by the mushrooms. I will need to check that out. I didn't use compost because I am not sure if my compost is perfectly weed free.

I placed one end of the logs on top of a twig so that it would get air circulation. I have no idea if that is important, I was trying to mimic fallen trees in the forest. 

When I first ordered the plugs, my plugs turned green and moldy. The fellow I ordered them from said that the bag might have been left open or it might have frozen. Oops, maybe I left the bag open a bit after I got them and before I tried to use them. I could have thrown them out but thought that I would place them in the same area to see if they would work anyway. If not, it is nice humus for the ground.

I covered the logs with more wood shavings.

Lastly, I covered it with a pile of snow.
I will keep you updated as to how it looks in the spring.

So if you can use a drill, then this is definitely something you could do in your own home.
Try to find a local supplier of mushroom log kits by doing and internet search in your town or city, then your province or state, then your country.
Once you get your logs set up, check out the medicinal uses of different mushrooms and find some nice recipes for cooking from fresh.
You can dry mushrooms and you can even preserve them in oil, vinegar or honey.

I hope I have convinced you that even if you have a black thumb (not green), or if you have no sunshine, or if you live in a balcony, or if you don't want livestock in your yard used mainly for pleasure (sitting in a deck chair), or if you don't want to pay daily attention to food production- you can still grow food by growing mushrooms.
Okay now look at my other mushroom post on how mushrooms can save the world.