Save Money By Growing Your Medicine: Starting A Maitake Mushroom Patch

The Japanese word "maitake" means "dancing mushroom" because people in ancient times were said to dance for joy when they found these mushrooms, which were literally worth their weight in silver. In North America it is called Hen of the Woods because its appearance looks like the ruffled feathers of a chicken.

Now, we will try our hand at growing the dancing mushroom.

Why Grow Maitake

Even Web MD touts the health benefits of Maitake mushrooms.

Maitake mushroom is used to treat cancer and also to relieve some of the side effects of chemical treatment (chemotherapy) for cancer. It is also used for HIV/AIDS, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), hepatitis, hay fever, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, weight loss or control, and infertility due to a condition called polycystic ovary syndrome.

We had pretty good success with our Shiitake mushroom log culture inoculation last spring. Thus, I am hopeful that our temperate zone 7 climate will favor the maitake.

There is a good bit of money savings associated with good health.  Adding home grown mushrooms to your diet of other garden foods, saves money. If nothing else, that is another expense you have eliminated. If it is a pharmaceutical expense, then all the better. A lot of those chemicals they sell just make us dependent and weak due to side effects, and there is often a natural alternative that is just as good with fewer unintended consequences.

Procedures for Growing

It may be that the log culture used for growing shiitake will not work so well with maitake. My research indicates that the best culture for naturally growing maitake (and reishi) mushrooms is on decomposing oak stumps. We do not have any freshly cut stumps presently so we are trying log culture. 

First, I ordered some spawn from Mushroom Mountain in Liberty, South Carolina. The mycelia produced locally will give me a better chance of successfully growing this mushroom. As you can see from the picture above, the mycelia are contained in small dowels.  

About three weeks before the spawn arrived, I cut a large branch from my white oak tree, and cut it further into three three foot-long sections.  The log was between 5 - 8 inches in diameter.

Next, I used a drill to cut holes the same size as the dowels in a diamond pattern around the logs. The holes were about 4-5 inches apart. The idea is that the mycelium will spread throughout the wood and produce fruit next year or maybe two years from now.

I tapped the dowels into the holes and sealed the top with melted bees' wax.  It's rainy season here in western North Carolina. I set the logs against the north side of a large white oak. This should keep them protected from the sun and the prevailing wind. You want the logs to stay moist to promote growth of the maitake mycelium. 

The best practice is to bury the logs in sandy soil so that they will stay moist. I will probably do this later when I figure out where I would like to set up my maitake patch.

Poison Ivy as a Productive Crop

One thing that I have noticed about poison ivy is that it produces quite a bit of organic material. The trick is using the stuff in a productive way. In this post, we look at how we set up a system to use goats to convert a poison ivy patch to food.

Most people give up on making use of poison ivy and spray it with a herbicide. Aside from the health risk, there are three practical problems with this approach.

1. Herbicide detrimentally affects other plants and animals;
2. Herbicide costs a lot of money for each application, and takes a lot of energy to apply; and
3. You lose the stored energy manifested in the poison ivy plant.

Besides, we are natural gardeners and do not want to use herbicides on our place. We don't like it.

We bought the following supplies for our temporary fence project:

1. From Timeless Fencing, fifty 40" Step-In Posts.

2. From Premier Sheep Supplies, three 660' spools of 4.5 Intellirope electric fence cord, three Supareel T-post brackets, and a Patriot P10 battery energizer kit.

3. From the local Walmart, a 12 volt deep cycle marine battery.

I know these were capital expenses that probably exceeded the cost of a few gallons of Roundup. But unlike Roundup, this was a one time expense, it is natural, and using them, we will make productive use of poison ivy.


To set up the system, we connected one end of the Intellirope to a post. Then, using the spools, we strung the wire around the circuit hanging three strands on the Timeless temporary fence posts. At the end of the circuit, we hung the rope spools on a T-post using the Supareel brackets. Next, we installed the ground rod, wired the strands to each other, and hooked up the energizer, fence, and battery. The electric rope fence energized as soon as the clamp hit the post.

Our goats are very happy to be out of the sun. They are enjoying the browse in the wooded area and eating a lot of poison ivy. They love it.

I will post an update later to show you how the plan worked.

In the future, we can move our temporary electric fence and goats around and into any 500 foot patch of brambles on our place and it will not cost us anything but the time.

We now look at poison ivy as a free food source for our goats. The ivy plant converts solar energy into lots of leaves and vines. The goats convert the poison ivy leaves and vines into meat and milk.

Voila!

Poison ivy is a productive crop.

June 14, 2014 UPDATE: Three strands does not seem to be enough to contain my does in the electric fence area. They just get a running start and dodge through the lower electric rope lines. I am ordering a fourth spool, to see if that will stop them from escaping. 

The other possibility is the Patriot P10 may not pulse frequently enough to deter goats. It is rated at 40 pulses per minute. This is good for preserving the battery, but makes the charger less effective if the goats can time out and scoot through between pulses. 

My goats generally are not escape artists. I think there may be some bugs that are bothering them, and perhaps the shelter situation is less than what they are used to experiencing. They are pretty spoiled goats who like to hang out in a horse barn.

Berkley Method of Composting in 18 Days

I watched Geoff Lawton's instructions on a basic composting system.  This post summarizes the method Geoff described, which was a modified Berkley method.

First, your goal is to obtain a carbon:nitrogen ratio of between 25 to 30 parts carbon to one part nitrogen. The ingredients of your compost pile vary in richness of nitrogen.  A detailed table is at the link in this sentence.

Your pile ought to be at least 1 M cubed (about five feet).  Do not exceed 1.5M or you may compress the bottom of the pile and encourage anaerobic compost organisms.  Make the pile longer instead of higher.

Cover the pile to keep rain out of it.  You do not want to put the tarp or cover directly on the hot compost or you will encourage anaerobic organisms where the tarp touches the pile. Put branches or something on top to lift the tarp off the top of the pile.

The ingredient mix to achieve the right C:N ratio is approximately 1/3 high carbon (wood shavings, etc.), 1/3 green material, and 1/3 high nitrogen.  These ingredients are thoroughly mixed together.

Mix this together into a pile.  Use a long handled, three to five pronged pitchfork to manage the pile.  Use a rake to smooth it out.

At the beginning, you may use an activator in the middle of the pile.  That could be a dead animal, dead fish, chopped up comfrey or plant with lots of mineral content, or old good compost.  You do not need the activator, but it will help to speed up the process.

At day 4, turn the pile over.  Turn it again every other day thereafter until day 18.

All along you need to keep the moisture content approximately correct.  Geoff recommends a squeeze test.  You grab a big handful of compost and squeeze it tightly in your hands.  If you can get a single droplet to fall out, then it is the right moisture level.  If you can almost get a drop, it is ok.  If it dribbles a lot of drops, it is too moist.

Also, you must periodically test the temperature.  Unless you have a thermometer, you can do this by sticking your arm into the pile.  The temperature should be between 50 - 70 degrees C, but try to keep the temperature between 55-65 degreesC.

At day six, you need to test the compost.  If it is not hot enough, then something is wrong.  Here are the questions:

1. Is it big enough?
2. Is it too wet/dry?
3. Is the mixture right?

You test the heat by sticking your arm into the pile toward the middle.  At 50 degrees C the pile will be uncomfortably hot.  70 degrees will burn and you will be unable to get you arm into the pile.  This is good. The temperature means that the compost is working hard.

If the pile gets too hot, then you will see a white powder developing on the pile.  That is a sign of anaerobic activity.  You need to cool it down some.

If something has gone wrong, you will need to add days lost until the compost is finished.

In the end, hopefully at day 18, smell the compost. It should be earthy smelling and not noxious.  It should be fine. It should be dark brown.  This material is full of beneficial soil life.  You may use it to make compost tea.

Different plants like different flavors of compost.  Trees like fungal rich compost.  Vegitables like bacterial rich compost.  You can mix into the compost different elements to encourage these preferences within a pile after it is done.

Geoff says flour makes a great addition to encourage fungal growth.  Mix into the pile three kilos of flour.  The fungal net will grow rapidly over ten days and then you have compost that is great for planting trees.

Red Wriggler Compost Bin: Manure See-Saw

I made a red wriggler compost bin for the worms I bought on March 15, 2013. The construction was pretty simple and easy. In early February, before the worms arrived, I just stacked up cinderblocks in the middle of my garden. I added a couple wheelbarrow loads of horse manure. I filled the area to the brim with the manure. We let the manure sit for a few weeks.

When the worms arrived, we put them into the manure-filed bin. Then, I covered it with some thick sheets of cardboard to keep the moisture inside. (I may add some plywood to the roof later this summer as it gets hotter.)

Over the early spring, the level of the manure decreased by about half. That means that over ten weeks, the 2000 starting wrigglers decreased the pile by fifty percent. Once there is nothing left to eat, the worms will die if you do not keep feeding them fresh manure. We did not start with tremendous quantity of red wriggers (relative to some systems). However, we believe (and hope) the wriggers are multiplying so this process should accelerate as their population gets larger and larger.

I shoveled the half-eaten manure from the eastern side of the bin to the west side. In the picture above, you can see what it looks like sloughed off to one side.

I went out to our horse pasture and gathered a barrow full of fresh manure. Then, I carted it up to the garden and dumped it into the once empty half of the bin. I still need to add one more barrow full of fresh manure. I covered the bin back with cardboard until I bring up the next load.

The wrigglers cannot eat the fresh manure. It is too hot for them, so they will safely stay over in the west side munching away on that stuff. Once that stuff is depleted, the wrigglers will migrate over to the east side that has the fresh manure and start munching away.

At that point, the plan is to harvest the castings from the west side and spread it into the raised beds and gardens for our plants.  What goes into the empty western side of the bin at that point?  You guessed it.  More fresh horse manure.

It is a worm manure see-saw.

Handling our Bucklings Situation

Our twin bucklings are about five weeks old now and they are very healthy young goats. The scabs on their head is from the disbudding procedure described earlier on this blog here.

We do not want to have bucks. Bucks are nice if you want to start a herd, but we would like to keep our goat herd small. Plus, as suggested by the picture to the right, Bucks have some goat characteristics that we prefer to avoid. The picture shows a buck peeing on his own face. The upper lip is protruding so he can maximize the taste and smell the goat urine. The propensity to pee on one's own face, is probably one of the least offensive qualities of a buck.

We would like at least one or two more does, but God did not give us any this year. We are blessed with our bucklings, who we have named Johnny Bench (yellow collar) and Garcia (red collar). (I tell them apart because Johnny Bench has coloring on his forelegs that looks like shin guards.)

The video above was shot on Saturday, May 11, 2013, the day after we undertook the neutering procedure. Neutered goats are called "whethers."

We opted to emasculate our goats with a burdizzo. FIASCO farm has a detailed description on how to undertake neutering male goats with a burdizzo here. We used a Richey Nipper tool (see left).

As recommended, we gave the young goats a tincture called Ow-Eezz to prepare them before we undertook the process. The process itself did not take long, only about five minutes per goat. The young goats were pretty sore for about two hours afterwards. The next morning, they were up and jumping around as normal. As you can tell if you watch the video, they are forgiving creatures.

Bee Hive Update

On May 2, 2013, I added a honey super, quilt, and roof to the bee hive. The picture to the left shows the construction of my first hive.

Starting with the top down, this posts discusses the new parts and the thinking behind them.

The telescoping roof was made with pine boards.  I tested it and it appears water tight.  The roof fits over top of the quilt.

The quilt is made from a medium narrow super.  I stapled burlap to the bottom of the empty box. Then, I filled it up with some alfalfa hay and pine shavings to about 1/2.   This is an insulation layer for the bees.  Hopefully, it will keep the hive cooler.  The idea is based on Warre' Hive design.

The last new piece was the medium super.  Like the bottom two hive bodies, it is full of foundationaless frames.  They do have starter strips of wax.  I glued them into the grooves of the frame top bars and tacked them down with a couple finishing nails.

I have another medium super that I will add eventually.  Don the Fat Bee Man does not recommend that you put too much empty space into a hive or it will demoralize the bees and set them back.

I also removed a plastic sheet that slid under the screened bottom board.  With spring having sprung, I don't think we are going to have anymore freezing nights.

All the new hive parts, like the old, are treated with linseed oil.  I used green spray paint on the roof for a little color and to match our house.

When I opened the hive, I discovered the bees had started building four combs in the second hive body.  The comb was white and empty except for bees crawling on it.  It is encouraging that the bees were already working hard on filling the second hive body box with drawn comb.  The drawn comb was beautiful.  I'm glad I didn't mar the bees work with foundation.

Note, some of the wax starter strips on the top bars in the second hive body were dangling down into the hive body.  I figure the bees will work around those.  Hopefully, the comb will keep going on straight.  I glued the starter strips to the top bars of the medium super so maybe it will hold this time.

Shiitake Mushroom Dowel Spawn Innoculation and Lessons

This weekend I used up all my soy wax innoculating white oak logs with shiitake mushroom dowel spawn. I bought 1000 from Fungi Perfecti.

I made several purchases from Fungi Perfecti to create our first shiitake mushroom garden. First, I bought 100 plugs and one pound of soy wax.

The 100 plugs were not even enough to innoculate one 7 inch diameter, four foot log.  Therefore, I called and ordered 1000 plugs.

I used the 1000 plugs to innoculate the rest of the first log, and three more.  Then, I ran out of wax and gifted the rest of the spawn to my neighbor.  I think I had around 300-400 plugs left.

It is a pretty good bit of work to make a shiitake mushroom garden.  I'm talking about just the drilling and innoculation process after you gather the logs.  I have a pretty good drill and it still took several hours to do all the work.

Here are the steps you should follow to efficiently innoculate logs.  (These steps were discovered to be the most efficient after trial and error.)

• Drill all of the 5/16 inch holes in a log.   Each hole is 4 inches from the next laterally.  Go down the log drilling holes.  Turn the log and drill holes about 2 inches below the first line, staggered so the new row lines up roughly in the middle of the previous row.  Turn and drill. Turn and drill.  Do this until you have rows of 5/16 inch holes all around the log.
• Hammer in the plugs with a rubber mallet.  Hammer plugs into all holes.
• Melt about 3 ounces of wax in a metal container.  Apply the was with a brush on each of the plug spawn to seal the log.  If you need more wax, refill and keep covering your spawn plugs.
• Repeat the process log by log.

I used an empty bean can for my wax container and heated at very low over my gas stove.  If you try to cover too many plugs your wax will cool down before you can finish.

I like to do one log at a time because it gives a sense of accomplishment with each log. Also, my hands got tired of drilling after so many holes in a log.

I discovered that chickens like the taste of soy wax.  Keep your chickens away from your project or they may decide to eat your wax off your logs in your garden location.  Hopefully, my chickens do not decide to eat my wax!

I ran out of wax after four logs.  One pound is not enough.  I recommend you purchase the ten pound bag of wax and 1000 spawn.  That should insure you have enough wax to cover all your spawn.  1000 spawn will innoculate about seven or eight logs (6-7 inch diameter) cut to four foot lengths.

I stacked my logs horizontally about twenty feet into my zone five edge under the canopy of a large oak. Fungi Perfecti recommends a vertical stack, but I did not want to risk getting invasive fungus into my logs before the shiitake spreads throughout the wood.

I will need to move my stack from its present location.  I discovered that even though they are located under a large oak, my logs are getting some sun in their present location in the noon sun. The sunbeams shine right down through a hole in the canopy on top of my stack.  

No problem.  It just takes some manpower to move them.

Hopefully, we have shiitake next year around this time.