Shiitake Happens

Learning Adventures

But it takes a lot of work.  The Mohawk Valley Garlic Festival is this Saturday and we are in crunch mode getting ready for it. This involves pulling our tent, tables and assorted other supplies out of the storage shed and dumping them back in our living room.  Talk about an obstacle  course.   We have bins for the smaller stuff; the cooking supplies, table covers,  display pieces, and all the other odds and ends we will need.  Then we have the coolers and wood rack for our logs.   My leg muscles are getting a good work out with all the stretching I am doing, making sure I clear each bin as I make my way around the room.
We have finally cleaned all the garlic we plan to bring. Now comes the final sort and Ron tackling his new project. He bought some nifty bags that he is going to fill with heads of garlic and offer them for sale.   And a few more boxes are added to the pile.

This was my project.  We are taking 21 logs with us this time and I had to make bows for each of them.  I did it over a couple days, getting each step done for them all before moving on.  Tuesday night just after 10 pm I was done.  Had gotten started with the final gluing and was simply going to get them all done that night.  This time we were sure to add the length of wire before I glued the middle piece on.    One lesson learned from the CCE Herb and Flower Festival.   Hot glue and I don’t really get along.  I woke the next morning with more than a few scorched fingers.

Last weekend we took the time to do a practice run for our shitake sample procedure.  Jo was going to be in charge of filling the little boats, adding the pesto and the dot of sriracha.  Another lesson,  we need to have a way to keep the boats from flying away in a breeze.  Which is why we have the plate sitting inside a plastic bin.

Ron will be manning the stove and I will be the one handing out the samples, encouraging people to try and then buy our shiitakes.

It was windy as we practiced and that reminded Ron that we needed a proper napkin holder, one with an arm to hold the stack down.  One of his potholders caught fire so we need to replace that too.  And we need the right sized plastic spoons for Jo to use.  Once again we determined that using the pastry bag for the pesto was just not going to work.

On top of all this, the mushrooms still have to be grown.  Which means trips out to THF for lots of soaking and hauling and worrying over our logs.  The weather is not being helpful with the cooler temps and rain.   This is the first year we are actively working to grow shiitakes this late in the year.  It has been slightly stressful as we really don’t know what to expect.  It would be so much easier on our nerves if we were selling a non perishable product.   Maybe Jo has the right idea when she talks about making plush mushrooms.

Ron and I both arranged to take Friday off, giving us more time to get ready for Saturday.  I had a few extra days off to schedule and decided to take today too.  That was a good decision.  Jo and I headed out first thing this morning to dust one set of logs with diatomaceous earth in our continuous battle with the blood thirsty slugs.  Or are they shiitake hungry?   So wet out on THF and the  mud made it difficult to get around.  The mushrooms looked pretty good though.  Then home to get assorted errands done.  I managed to find the right spoons for the pesto which made my day very happy.   I got some more organizing done but somehow managed to lose our master list.  Cannot find it anywhere.

Ron got home and we got ready to go pick mushrooms.  Rainy weather caused a delay but we finally started out.  We got out to the logs just in time for a pouring rain storm.  Had to make mad dash for our tent to get out of it.  Soaking wet by that time and chilled to the bone.  Wet mushrooms are not good at all, so there would be no picking until the rain stopped.

The rain died off and we raced out to get the shiitakes picked and our “pretties” pulled out of the soaking tanks and loaded into the wagon.  Raced might be a bit of a stretch.  The mud really makes it hard to move around.

Some pretty shiitakes. So hoping they sell well on Saturday. And hoping we see a few familiar faces at the Mohawk Valley Garlic Festival in Little Falls, NY.

Crazy summer days on THF

Garlic

No matter what the old song says – we definitely are not having any lazy days this year. This is our first year of actually selling product. Which has added a huge amount of work to our lives. Last year Ron reached out to a few local restaurants about our shiitakes and we have been selling to three of them. Just this week we sold our first garlic too. Ten pounds of German red specifically requested by one of the chefs.  Hoping this was the first of many garlic sales.

And we are in the midst of planning for our second vendor event.  On Sept 9 we will be at the Mohawk Valley Garlic Festival, selling our shiitakes and garlic.  Getting the garlic ready for sale is easy enough. Wait, did I just say easy???  After harvesting it and hanging it to cure, we now have to clean it.  There are several levels of clean.  The quickest is, of course to just cut off the dead leaves and beard and give the bulb a rub to get off most of the dirt.  Then you can go further by rubbing off a few more of layers of wrapper.  Or you can spend serious time getting each bulb down to it prettiest.  This involves making a careful decision about how many wrappers you remove.  This can go badly very quickly.  One too many and you have peeled the whole thing.  Which results in that bulb ending in the “our” use pile.

No matter what you plan to do with your garlic, it is hard word getting it from the ground and ready for use.  You wouldn’t think it would be so tiring, sitting around a table cleaning garlic.  But it is hard on your hands and just wears on you.  Makes me understand why we saw some vendors at a garlic fest who left their garlic just pulled from the field.

We also have to get our shiitakes ready to sell in Little Falls.  This involves moving sets of 25 logs into the soaking tanks for a 24 hour soak and then moving them back to their racks.  They have to be checked on over the next few days to watch for pinning.  Ron is finally using the while board I bought him and has our upcoming schedule written out.  We still have to prep for our normal weekly sales too.

On Aug 19  we spent the day on THF to getting some work done.  The needed part for our brush hog arrived and Ron got it up and running.  Jo tackled the mowing while Ron and I worked on weeding around our bushes and trees.   We could not even see Ron’s pawpaw trees amidst all the weeds.  Twice I caught myself just in time before I yanked the tree out thinking it was a weed.

We can tell we still have a lot of work to do.  Including adding more mulch around each plant.  Our weeds are relentless and will grow right through the weed cloth we put down.  I think the plan is to have a low growing ground cover between the rows in an effort to reduce the work we will need to do.  Anything that will keep the weeds at bay.

After mowing for several hours, Jo was ready for a break so she helped Ron with the weeding and I took over with the brush hog.  We needed to get the future juneberry patch under control.

 

We really cannot let it get this overgrown again.  Could not even locate our strips of ground cloth until I had mowed a few rows.  The stuff is so tall that often I was just knocking it down, not cutting it.  If I knew how to use one, it might be more efficient to go old school and break out a sythe.

All of this is part of our plan to getting ready for next spring when I have to ready for next fall when we will be planting our juneberries.   This time we are not going to be rock picking (thank God) but need to kill off as many of the weeds as we can.  Then a quick tilling and, fingers crossed, we will be good to go.

Oh – in October we have to plant our 2018 crop of garlic.  And Ron is thinking of getting new logs inoculated this fall.  There is more mowing and tilling to get down for our spring planting of calendula and echinacea.  Of course, we have the normal prepping for winter to get done too.  Never thought I would be so looking forward to snow fall.

 

 

 

 

 

Rescue mission, part two

Thoughts

A week later and we were out at THF to pick shiitakes and rescue some of our missing logs. They are calling for rain today at 11 am so we were ready to go just before 7.  Shiitakes were the priority so Jo and Ron headed over there. I stopped to check on our lavender and elderberries.

So excited to see the ripening berries, but I need to get busy not only covering these bushes to keep the birds away but also figuring out some kind of support.  There are more than a few branches resting on or near the ground.

I did a bit of weeding and then headed across the stream to help with the shiitakes.  Once they were all picked and safely stashed in the tent, we girded ourselves for the trip out to get the found logs.  All three of us had on hip waders so we should stay dry this time.  But this adventure was going to be tricky.  Ron would be driving the 4 wheeler while I walked in front of him guiding  him to the more shallow areas.  Jo would follow behind to keep an eye on both of us.    Right away thing got a bit dicey.  Ron had to drive faster than I could walk.  Remember I was not only walking in the stream but dealing with the rocks too.  He had to keep going in order to prevent getting bogged down.    There were tree branches hanging low over the stream that we had to dodge and even more of them in the stream itself.  We hit the deeper spots and I had Ron stop to make the decision about which way to go.  He made the choice and then gunned it.  I had to scramble to get out of his way.  Jo was freaking out, sure that I was going to be hit.  Sliding on the rocks in my boots, I managed to get up on the bank and Ron flew by me.  Huge relief when he got up onto the bank of rocks and brought the machine to a stop.

Jo and Ron loaded the logs already piled up into the wagon and planned their way back.   I headed down the right side of the stream.  I am still determined to search as much as I can for our sled.  I found 9 more logs and a few seriously deep pools.  Up to my knees deep.  I made my way back to Ron and Jo to see if the plan was now to gather up these logs too.   Delighted to hear that they had also been log hunting and had 15 more pulled out of the brush.   Jo and Ron headed back to THF and I headed back upstream to start bringing my found logs out.  That was some seriously hard work.  Carrying logs while walking through deep water burned off a lot of calories.  I had to watch where I was putting my feet as I did not want to fall, but was also keeping one ear open for a bellow from Ron.  Thank goodness all I heard was the engine of the 4 wheeler getting fainter as they safely moved down stream.

They were back before I had all 9 logs corralled.  Jo was soaking wet.  As she had struggled to hold a branch out of Ron’s way the back wash had gotten her.  She lost her balance and went down.  Once again she had boots full of water.   She helped me with the last few logs and they headed back out again.  It was best that I wasn’t going with Ron.  My nerves aren’t as young as Jo’s are.  There were spots on his trip where he could have easily tipped himself over.  He was trying to stay in the shallow ends, but sometimes that meant having one side up on the rocks and the other side in the deep.  I was doing myself better by hauling more logs out of the brush.

Last load of logs and pallets.  Did I mention we needed to get them back to the farm too?  We need them to stack the logs on.  They headed out again and I grabbed the 8 foot long board I found to follow.  But then decided to go back another way, exploring a bit.  Except for one patch of serious bog, it might have been a better way for Ron and the 4 wheeler too.

I got back safely, grabbed the camera and headed out to the south end to find Ron and Jo.  They had decided to take the logs all the way out there right now.  This will save us work later on.  I hadn’t been out there since we moved all of our new logs out there.

All told, we found 50 logs.  Go us.   We aren’t sure that we will actually get shiitakes from them next year, and we are going to tag them, keeping them separate from the others.   You can see that some of them already have while spots on the ends, confirming they have been full inoculated.  Who knows, they may be end up being our best producers.

I might search for the missing sled again tomorrow.

 

 

Lost and found – rescue mission, part one

Thoughts

This weekend was fully planned out. Saturday we took the day off due to expected rain and the three of us drove to Syracuse. Lots of errands to run, including a favorite, the CNY Regional Market. That opens at 7 am and Ron is a big fan of getting there first thing. He wants to make sure he gets the rolls and bread that he really likes.   We didn’t get on the road quite as early as he wanted to, but I was just fine with the time.   Then Ron realized that he had forgotten his log soaking schedule.  They should have been done the night before.  It was too late to get it done on Saturday if we were going to make it to the market in time to get his bread.

Once the rolls and bread were safely in our shopping bags, Ron was off to the races. He wanted to see and talk with anyone who was selling garlic there.   Can you believe that he hadn’t remembered to bring any of our business cards?  Luckily I had some with me and he was able to hand them out.  Carrying a purse does come in handy at times.   Jo and I picked up a few things and Ron was finally done.  Next we headed to a restaurant supply store to find some of the brown paper bags we use.   The first place we stopped at did not have them but they graciously sent us to another stop that did have them.   Now that Ron’s shopping was done, all I heard was “move along, move along” from him.  He needed us to get home with enough time to get out to THF for soaking set up.  We got the last of our shopping done and headed home.  Grabbed a quick bite, changed into work clothes and drove to the farm.

The soaking tanks had been emptied so it was easy to load the logs in and then fill the tanks.  Our day was done and we went home.

Today the plan was to head to THF later in the day.  The logs need to soak 24 hours, no longer.  We had a few other things that needed to be done before our 3 pm deadline.  A tree to cut down,  the small reservoir we use for log soaking needed to be cleaned out.  Both of these chores were results of the flooding in July.  Jo was going to be busy mowing the field.  Then we still had some storm clean up do to, pull the logs out and start soaking a second set.

The tree came down quickly.  We still have to figure out the right way to get the bird house off this tree and on to another.  But that is for another project.

Next was to get Jo going with the brush hog.  And that is when the day totally changed course.  The key would not go in.  Nothing we tried got it to work so we moved on.

With Jo and me collecting rocks, (just where would we find those?) and Ron digging out the silt, we made good time on the repair.  Ron wired the intake hose to the cinder block, we placed it in the center and let the pump rip.  All was well and we moved on to the next project.  Jo and I headed off the pick up and bring back the 11 logs I found after the flood.  Ron started picking up the odds and ends about the place.

Once we had the logs stacked on right side of the stream I suggested we walk down the stream to see if we could find any more of our missing stuff.  Ron and I had the long boots on while Jo had her shorter ones on.   That turned out to be a mistake on her part.  The creek bed is a pretty one with lots of easy places to walk.  We spotted one of our blue tubs jammed between two trees, but then we rounded a corner and saw……

our water tank.  O frabjous day!  The hose was still attached and there was no damage.  I headed back to our work site to get my camera.  When I got back to the site, Jo and Ron had wandered off.  I took a look around and spotted one of our logs and then another and another.  I pulled them out of the wood pile and started stacking them on the rocks.  Jo came back and said Ron had headed upstream.  All told Jo and I found a dozen logs.  When Ron got back I was still digging in the bushes and handed him his ammo can.  We had forgotten about that.

This lovely pile has to wait for another day.  It was time to head back to our soaking logs.  But we had to take the water tank with us.  That was a serious job on its own.  No hand holds on the blasted thing.  Jo and I carried the back end while Ron wrapped the hose around his shoulders and led the way.  As we struggled back to THF, we were also paying attention to the path we would going to have to use with the 4 wheeler and wagon.

Now we had to pull the soaked logs out and get the next ones in.  And then load up all the garbage and walk to the vehicles.  We got there and Ron discovered he left his keys sitting on the wagon.  Jo was standing in water filled boots and I was not going to have her walk back.  Ron was just beat, so I headed back.  Keys in hand and I walked back to the road.  Loaded up and drove home.  Such a lovely word – home.

Of course the work was not done.  Showers for all and then beers all around.  I still had laundry to get done, dinner to organize, and this blog to post to.

This is not the end of the story.  Stay tuned to see how we pull off rescue part two.

 

 

Stinkin’ hard work

Garlic

This our second year harvesting garlic at THF.  Last year we pulled all of our garlic and drove it home to our back yard.  Using our canopy and the racks Ron built we cured it right there inside our tent set up. This year we had planted more garlic and would need a larger space for curing.  For the first time since we bought our house, the cathedral ceiling our garage has, came in handy.  Ron took the three racks he built last year and we connected them into one tall drying rack.  We  hammered two strips across the width of each section.  Those we would hang the garlic from.  I dearly wish we had a fourth person around some times, just to take pictures and keep notes of the crazy things we are doing.

We started pulling garlic on July 22, planning do to one type at a time.  We had three varieties this year – German while, music and German red.   Have to keep them separate as we need to sell each type specifically.

At first we pulled  each garlic head, shook off the dirt and put them in the tub intact, with all their leaves.   It was the perfect weather for working in the field.  Not too hot, with a nice breeze to keep us cooler.   After the first hour I realized that next year we really need to have a garlic harvesting party.  More people would really make this go much faster.

Ron had already given the next process a good deal of thought.  Bundles of six garlic heads, based on similar size tied together and then up on the rack.   Luckily for us, I had already given thought to the process too.  The canopy was needed in order to keep us cool.  Turned out to be a nice set up for cleaning shiitakes too.   After the first few bundles were ready, we realized that a trip to the store was necessary.  We just didn’t have enough string in the house.  I headed off to Walmart to find something and came home with cotton twine.  Grabbed a couple of pedestal fans too.  We need them to keep the air moving.  When I got home I discovered that Ron had clipped a clothes pin to the back of my shirt before I left.  Walked all around the store with that thing showing.  Thanks, my loving husband.

Ron showed me his technique for hanging each bundle to the slat.   Typical male – it involved a series of wedgies.  I took over this job while Jo cut the string into the right length and made the needed loop and Ron wrapped the bundles.   Our garlic party of 2018 will also include this part.  Though we hope it will be easier since we plan on having a shed built on THF before then for just this purpose.   I discovered that we needed to cut all the leaves off after all.  They were just too much in the way.  I handed the job of cutting them off to Jo.

Unfortunately our day was not over yet.  We headed back out to THF to harvest the second patch.  Then we had to get them up on the rack too. This made for a long day, but we have two thirds of our garlic drying.   On Wednesday the 26th, we headed out to get the next set.  This time we cut the leaves off on site which would reduce the amount of work needed to get them up on the drying rack.  We got the filled tubs home and into the garage where they sat until the next day after work.

After work on Thursday we got started again.  This time it went faster as we already knew what we were doing.  The only change was that now I was standing on our step stool in order to reach the next rows.

Good thing I am not afraid of heights.   Even better that I bought us a new and lovely step stool just last month.  Just a couple of hours of work and we were done.  Garage really smells of garlic now.   No worries about vampires getting in any time soon.

We weren’t done yet.  We had one more patch to go.  This was a mixture of all three varieties, what had been left over from the main planting.  Again we had to keep them all separate.  Bright and early Sunday morning we headed out for one last run of harvesting.

This last bit was going on the top rails of our drying rack.  Now was the time to break out our tallest ladder.  It was a bit more difficult that we thought it would be.  The straps we were using to hold the rack in place meant we had to do some serious maneuvering around to get the ladder set up so I could use it.

I tied the last bundle onto the slat and felt the massive satisfaction of job well done.

Then Jo ruined it all by reminding me that in about three weeks we have to take this all down.

THF added another “F” word on the do-not-use list

Thoughts

And that would be Flood. Even worse is Flash Flood.

We are still dealing with the after effects of the storms that rolled though our area the weekend of July 1st. Everything is still very damp and the mud is everywhere.
So we were very unhappy when the alerts popped up on our phones July 10th. We had already made the decision that our logs needed to be moved to a safer location. Somewhere the over flowing creek won’t get them.  On the south end of the property, the bank is quite high.  If that ever floods, we are done for.

So now they were calling for three more inches of rain.   It was supposed to start on Wednesday, the 12th at 8 pm.  We had to get the logs moved NOW.  Could not afford to lose any more of them.   We thought about getting out to THF on Tuesday, but we were all so tired and just not in the mood.  That turned out to be a huge mistake.

I got out of work at 4 pm and was home about 30 minutes later.  We changed into work clothes and boots and headed out.   It was hot and muggy out by the creek but the work  had to be done.  The first logs we tackled were the ones we just inoculated.  They had to be moved across the stream and down to the south end, but keeping them separate from the shiitake logs.  These 75 logs would be set up on A frames like the shiitakes, but they will not require any soaking.   Oyster mushrooms show up when they want to.  So far, no one has figured out a way to force them to flower on a schedule.  It will be interesting to see how it goes next year.  So far our totem experiment had not produced any mushrooms.  It could be because we used the wrong type of tree.  It was just one that fell down and Ron didn’t want to waste it.

The plan was to load up the wagon and have Jo and Ron go across with them.  Jo would stay down at the far end and help unload and set up the logs.  I would stay at the tent for now and work on getting everything up and out of any potential flooding.   Once all the logs were across the stream, I headed over myself to help move the rest of the logs.

Already we were feeling the heat and effects of the hard work.  We had moved just 5 loads of 25 each and were already exhausted.  We had to keep going though.   This had to be done.   It was pick up each log and load it into the wagon, then Ron drove them down to the other end where they were unloaded and stacked again onto pallets.  Did I mention we had to move the pallets too?

When it started to sprinkle at 730 pm I almost danced for joy.  It was a brief bit of coolness.  Didn’t last long enough though.  And the logs kept moving south.

Finally, finally we were done.  And we came to final count of about 100 logs lost during the previous flooding.   I would still like to find the time to walk further downstream to see if I can locate any more of them.  Or our water tank.  That was another casualty.  We have not needed it just yet, but will next year when we have to not only water our newly planted juneberries and fill the log soaking tanks which will now be “miles” away from our water source.   We already know that using open buckets or large tubs to haul water in our wagon results in lose of a good chunk of it.   So that means we will need another water tank.  My budget is shuddering as I type.

The logs were all moved and the three of us were sweaty, dirty, wet and exhausted.  Extremely hungry too, so a quick trip to McDonalds was in order.  Am not sure the one we chose will allow us back in.

And, of course, the rain did not come.  On one hand, that was good news.  No worries about losing anything more and dealing with even more mud.  But it was annoying too.  All that work and it was not needed.  At least not now. But we now don’t have to worry the next time we hear the dreaded words “flash flood”.   Well, not worry as much.  Personally, the next time, I will pack Ron up with a hammock, rain jacket, waders, and food then send him on his way to THF.   He is after all, the man with plan and I am confident in his ability to thwart Mother Nature.