June is a really busy month with work in the weekends as well as during the week which is why I didn’t get round to writing a blog earlier in June. The busy time has luckily now come to an end with the beginning of the summer pauze. During the busy period I am three days a week at the Edible Log Farm carrying out numerous tasks part of the day. On Monday one batch of shii-take logs gets soaked and is taken out of the bath on Wednesday morning. The number of logs per batch in the water is somewhere between 30 to 60 individual logs with each log having a diameter between 6 – 20 cm and a length around 100 cm. The logs are heavier after having been in a bath because of the water that has been soaked up. A log can weigh somewhere between 8 – 30 kg depending on its size and how many mushrooms it has already produced and the loss of wood that has been “eaten up”. The logs are carried to a shady place in the forest and are leant against racks for the next phase of fruiting. The details of the soaking are noted in a clipboard and later added in an excel spreadsheet in the computer and each rack gets its own label.
The second batch of logs follows up the first batch on Wednesday afternoon and are taken out of the bath on Friday. The shii-take logs usually start to fruit a couple of weeks after the shock of being immersed in cold water. The mushrooms are then picked and the logs are sorted on the basis of producing or not producing mushrooms.
Time for a bath – week 26
