A little vid I made out in the garden. What a revelation! I can walk around with me Mac and film the environs while doing Permacultural stand-up comedy. I love it. I'll be doing this again, focusing perhaps on specific design and implementation subjects, seasons, plant, animal and fungal players, etc....
Anyway, in the very local news....
I very happy because big water-sucking lombardy poplar is gone thank you to David and a couple of Mayan guys and now the juicy chunks of its cellulose-flesh is mine to grow mushrooms and also to bury as the foundation for garden mounds or 'Hugel Kultur'. More on that later. Or go to this helpful blog for a good idea of what I am talking about: Lasagna gardening.
I have ordered 100 plugs each of oyster mushrooms, turkey tail, shi-itake, maitake and reishi. All are well-documented medicinal mushrooms with wonderful attributes. Oyster, Maitake and Shi-itake are delicious and adaptable to many dishes in the kitchen. Turkey tail and Reishi are both medicinal mushrooms too hard or leathery to eat, but perfect for a life-saving tea.
I get my stuff from Paul Stamets, the mushroom man, and his company "Fungi Perfecti" .
The oyster and turkey tail and about half of the shi-itake will go into the poplar logs and branches, and the other half of the shi-itake, the Reishi and Maitake will go into a bit of fresh oak which my dear Aunt bequeathed to the house as firewood. It's still nice and green and should do just fine! Denser wood, longer flushes. The denser Oak is favored by Reishi, Maitake and Shi-itake. Poplar is softer, and will produce Shi-itake, but for a shorter amount of time, as the decomposition process is quicker for softer, less dense, woods. Oyster will grow on just about anything, including coffee grounds.
We use relatively newly cut trees because the problem with old wood is that it is often already colonized by another fungus.
Of course, apart from what we humans can 'get' directly from medicinal mushrooms, they are important players within all natural systems on terra firma, and exist for their own reasons, which happily intersect with ours, if we are open to it! Decomposed wood makes good rich humus.... Everyone is happy, including the worms, insects and plants.
Permaculture.
