Winter Tips for Your Mushroom Logs
Many of you got mushroom logs earlier this year. We asked Jeremy and Jenny for some winter tips for those mushroom logs. They had some helpful advice! Here's what they had to say:
Log-grown mushrooms can take more patience than other crops; you may very well get mushrooms from your log next year even if you haven't yet.
We often get better yields from our second year oyster mushroom logs, and shiitake can be similar, especially if you don't force-fruit them. Winterize your mushroom log now, bring it out again next spring, and if you have a shiitake log I recommend force-fruiting it for better (and predictable) yields
With temperatures generally below freezing, it's about time to shelter your mushroom log kit a bit more for the winter. I'd recommend putting your log in an unheated garage or shed, since that will protect it from freezing winds. It's those sub-zero winds that can be damaging to them. Kept that way they also won't dry out that way, as opposed to a heated basement.
Growing mushrooms on logs indoors is possible, but trickier than you'd expect, especially oyster and other naturally-fruiting varieties. I'd recommend against covering your log (if kept in a building), since it's unnecessary and it will be that much harder to remember it's there! Bring it outside again in the spring when temperatures start to rise again above freezing.
If you'd like to refresh your memory of log kit instructions (or never got them in the first place), instructions for shiitake and oyster kits are now on our website. Don't worry, they're more concise than these suggestions! You can see instructions here:
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