Thursday, June 10, 2010

I Never Knew That Logs Could Be So Cool

At Calvert's Gift Farm, where I pick up my CSA shares, they have tons logs propped up and stacked all over the place. Can you guess what they are used for?


They have lots of holes drilled into them and a little bit of wax covering the holes.




They have tons of them just hanging out.



Just a hint, it's not for fire wood.



I would have never guessed this myself.



Give up?



They actually use these logs to grow Shiitake mushrooms!!! How cool this that!! I would have never thought to do that with a bunch of logs.



A few weeks ago when we went for our first CSA pick-up, my mom asked about these logs and got to take home some extra Shiitake mushrooms. The farmer explained to us that they drill holes in the logs, put in mushrooms spores then seal them with wax. After letting them sit for an entire year, they soak the logs in a barrel of water (you can see one of the barrels in the top picture). Mushrooms then grow out of the holes. Pretty sweet, huh? He also told us that these mushrooms taste much better than store bought (something I can attest to) because the ones you get from the store are typically grown on sawdust, which does not sound too appealing.

1 comment:

  1. As much as I detest mushrooms, I have to admit that that's pretty sweet.

    (My guess was going to be that kept bees in the logs!)

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