iEat Green gathered a small group of friends to help get our mushroom project off the ground. We had a few different kinds of mushroom spores. We first inoculated oak logs with Shiitake mushroom spores. When we are ready to harvest the Shiitake mushrooms (after waiting a year) we will soak the logs in water and then whack it with a hammer, which will simulate a tree falling in the forest, and tell the mushroom spores that it is time to fruit! 

The Oyster mushroom grow in straw, so we first had to pasteurize the straw with boiling water to kill any pathogens, and lay it out on a tarp to cool. Then we mixed the oyster mushroom spores with the straw and stuffed it into plastic grow bags which we hung in my basement in the dark. We punched small holes into the bags, so the mushrooms could grow out of it. We waited about 2 weeks, and when they started to pin, we brought them upstairs and hung them in our light filled, make-shift fruiting room. For 6 weeks straight, we had more oyster mushrooms than we could possibly eat! What an adventure!