Wood's-Grown Shitakes

For years Roy has talked about growing mushrooms and last spring he made a move -- a kind of "check-mate".  I was thinking a few shitake logs would be a good start, but Roy had a bigger plan. Last April he invested in equipment, spawn, and went to work on a place in our woods where we would raise shitakes.   It took a crew of five or six interns on loan from Village Acres,  Roy and me several days to get all the mushroom spawn inoculated into the logs.   It was loud, mundane,and fun work -- especially given the company of friends.  We expected our first harvest would be around 16 -18 months away, but low and behold, we just had our first bloom!  There are not very many just yet, but hopefully in the not too distant future, we'll have fresh shitakes for you to saute with your beef.