Shiitake

Shiitake

Growing

Today we set up a Shiitake mushroom growing kit. We got the block on Sunday at the market for $10 and hopefully we can get some growing mushrooms in the next few days!

The "block" is a compressed block of red alder sawdust, organic rye grain, spring water, and Shiitake mushroom culture. The kit was sold to us by Sno-Valley Mushrooms.

If you will not grow your mushroom immediately, please put your mushrooms in the refrigerator. If this is not done, your kit will start growing mushrooms prematurely.

Shiitake mushroom growing kits

Step 1

Remove bag and rinse kit thoroughly in tap; clean away any yucky stuff. After cleaning, flip kit upside down (you should see two parallel indents at the top). Keep kit at room temperature.

After misting with de-chlorinated water, (rain water ideal, if you put out water for the chlorine to evaporate not necessarily all of it will disappear because chloramines are being more frequently used in tap water) place a plastic bag (white bag ideal) over the mushrooms as a humidity tent. Remove shopping bag only to mist, rinse or harvest mushrooms from the kit. Rinse the kit daily with non-chlorinated water, but don't directly rinse growing mushrooms. Remember to keep your kit aerated, so put it ontop of a cooling rack.

Does Your Water Contain Chloramine?

Skeletal formula of chloramine

Chloramine Model

Step 2

Baby Shiitake mushrooms will come out in 3-4 days. After coming out, another few days will give them enough time to fully develop into harvestable mushrooms. After gills are exposed, harvest all mushrooms at the same time when the majority are full grown. If not eaten when harvest, store in refrigerator for up to two weeks.

Immature Shiitake mushrooms

Step 3

After the first harvest, let your kit rest. Put in a warm room without its humidity tent so it can dry out for 14-21 days. Watch out for signs of mold, wash of any green mold under running water. After the resting period has passed, rinse the kit thoroughly and soak it in some water for 6-12 hours. Repeat Step 2 and hopefully you will get 2-4 harvests this way.

A growing Shiitake mushroom kit

Step 4

The kit will shrivel up and grow mold as the mushroom uses its energy. Before this happens, you can use various methods to transport the mushroom into a log where it can live out its life. Contact me.

Enjoy your mushrooms!

Scale Bugs ... Yuck!

What are scale?

Scale bugs, superfamily Coccoidea, are agricultural pests with approximately 8,000 described species. There is a lot of variety in these Arthropods, ranging from minute organisms, only a millimeter or so, to five millimeters. All are covered by a wax that protects them from harm.

Female scale insects are almost always immobile after settling down and growing their shell to feed. Adult males are a lot smaller and usually have wings. Since their only purpose in life is to fertilize the females and reproduce, they only live one or two days and never feed. What a life!

Before settling down, the females are in a stage called instars. After emerging from the egg with functional legs, instars are informally called crawlers. As soon as they are out of the egg they crawl (geddit?) to a favorable spot to feed and live out their lives.

Most of Coccoidea are parasites to plants, but some species live on the opposite end of the spectrum. Some species. like genus Newsteadia, feed on fungi instead of plants. Scale bugs are not so picky with their victims, it seems....

Scale is a serious pest to agricultural crops. Insecticides are able to kill instars, but adult waxy coating protects them from insecticides, so other methods are used to exterminate these little rascals after they have developed their adult shells.

Horticultural oils can be used to suffocate them, chemicals that poison the juices of the host plants, or introducing predators to the scale. Parasitoid wasps and Coccinellid beetles, which eat the scale. If you have scale infested plant nearby an ant colony, the ants will also eat the scale.

In conclusion, Coccoidea is a pesky superfamily, full of various sap-suckers that are pests inside our houses and farms. Chemicals and biological control can be used to prevent them from entering our houses and eating our beloved plants alive, and scale have a interesting system of sexual reproduction.