Edible Wood Farm Journal: 2018 (14)
Weather
Crazy weather! Instead of a mild and gentle spring with a daily temperature around 20C, most of the week was humid with the daily temperature reaching 30C in some places with intermittent intense thundershowers. Generally good weather for the fungi that are active in the spring. My shiitake logs seemed to like the weather as well. I was a little apprehensive about the high daily temperature but the humidity seemed to compensate for that fear. A small number of the shiitake logs that had been soaked a couple of weeks ago very agreeably produced the first real harvest of the year. Always a joyous moment!
No snails here
Every spring I clear the forest floor of all the leaves, twigs and needles from the past year so as to make it more difficult for snails residing in the debris to climb onto the logs for a meal of mushroom. I could easily imagine a competition going on between snails and slugs over the towering source of protein growing above their heads. Unfortunately not all forest creatures were able to live to tell their tale. The half filled water tank was apparently a good place for the local birds to have a drink and cool down. My harvest not only included a modest portion of shiitake mushrooms but also an unfortunate very dead crow. (The mushroom crate got a good clean afterwards).
