Edible Wood Farm Journal: 2025 (6)
Soaking
Week 20 is a magical datum. It is the first week of the year that the shii-take logs can take a bath. Both sorts of logs, summer and winter. A good time to mix and dip. This time the weather was nice and dry with a comfortable day temperature around 20C. Three batches of logs, about 100 logs in totaal, were soaked for two days and were then put upright in the forest leaning against each other in companionable support. Soaking is needed in order to stimulate a harvest. All Edible Wood logs are sold once they have proved themselves by producing one good harvest. Several days later the weather changed. A number of heavy rainshowers nourished the dehydrated soil and gave the remaining stacks of mushroom logs an unrestrained natural soaking.
Mushrooms
A week later the first signs of mushroom life appeared, small button like objects cracking through the bark. Lots and lots and lots of them. Another week of growth and the buttons had turned into old fashioned sturdy spinning tops. When I returned a couple of days later the previously soaked standing logs in the forest looked like over-stimulated hedgehogs and the horizontal logs reminded me of Chinatown filled with decorated hanging parasols. Time to get to work. Waste is not my middle name and all mushrooms must be picked, sorted and sold / used as best as possible.
Harvesting
Picking and sorting the first 8 kg of shii-take mushrooms took me a couple of hours. The sense of pride began to diminish after the first 5 kg and was replaced with practical concerns. What was I going to do with all of these mushrooms? It is not easy to find spontaneous business customers on a Wednesday so I concentrated on family, friends and known mushroom connaisseurs. Success!
On Saturday I went back to pick other now mature mushrooms and left the Edible Wood Farm with almost 10 kg of shii-take mushrooms but this time I had no customers. I cleaned out one of the company refridgerators and filled it with trays and trays of shii-take mushrooms.
Monday was not spent behind the computer which is normal for a Monday but instead spent on mushroom picking (yet again) and after many harvesting hours all of the mushroom trays were filled. In between picking duty I was able to convince some colleagues to buy all of the harvested mushooms which was very pleasing. But… there were still more logs to harvest and I was out of time and trays.
Selling
As an almost desperate measure I texted a couple of organisations of which I am a member with the request of notifying other members of my quandary. My message resonated. A couple of hours later I had received enough positive reactions from these new customers to make it worth while to return to the Edible Wood Farm the next day to continue with harvesting the remaining mushrooms. Another 13 kg further and every log was now free of mushrooms. At last. The rest of the week was spent running around delivering the mushrooms which is fine when combined with other purposes but is not financially viable on a regular basis.
What an amazing time and a reminder of the force of nature but the next couple of weeks I was quite happy to have a mushroom free life.
