Mushroom Inoculation

I think this isn’t going to work. But that’s never stopped me before.

I was ordering rootstock and strawberries from Raintree Nursery, saw these lion’s mane mushroom dowels, and just couldn’t resist. If you’ve never had lion’s mane ‘shrooms, imagine a sea sponge-shaped object that tastes like meaty forest, and there ya go. I didn’t know they were “domesticated” so I splurged and spent $18 on 50 dowels inoculated with the mushroom. When the rootstock and strawberries and mushrooms arrived, I promptly potted up the trees and planted the strawberries. The mushrooms sat around for awhile. I found the instructions daunting. I had to find some big pine logs or stumps and a drill before the whole process could happen. Luckily Billy had a drill at his shop, and brought it home. A few days later, I encountered some big logs at my favorite log dump off area on Hearst in Berkeley (that frontage road west of the fancy 4th street shopping area).

After I drilled what seemed like 50 holes, I tapped the little dowels in…
with a hammer, then sealed them with wax. I melted some beeswax I had lying around the house, and just daubed that onto the filled holes. I guess you have to do that because other spores can get in and take over the log instead of the lion’s mane spawn. Of course I dropped the hot pan of wax and ruined my kitchen floor first.
Here they are, all inoculated. Now I just wait. The instructions said it’ll probably be a year before anything happens. In the meantime, I think I’m going to put these guys under my outdoor produce washing sink so they keep good and wet this summer. Fingers crossed, but not holding my breath.