Finally! Some of the mushroom logs a friend and i inoculated are starting to fruit! These are shitake mushrooms. Inoculating wood with mushroom plugs isn't hard. You do need fresh wood (not aged) and shitakes are partial to oak, but they'll also do well with other hard woods. You need a shady area, or you can cover the logs with a shade cloth as well. They also need sufficient moisture. Soaking the logs before inoculating can help, but make sure the bark dries out before you inoculate them. If it's hot and dry in the summer, you'll need to give them moisture as well. Once inoculated, you can soak the ends of the logs for about 8 hours, then turn them over to soak the other end. Doing this every couple of weeks will help them fruit. Letting the mushrooms fruit naturally can take time, sometimes, lots of time. You can force them as well, but they won't fruit as long if you force them.

Most mushroom varieties will give you a large fruiting in cooler weather, so spring and fall. If you force them, you can get them to fruit in summer as well.

Been starting to plant garlic as well. Our autumn has been very mild so i've been putting back the time i usually plant my garlic. Next week though, things will start to happen in earnest, got a lot of garlic to get in the ground!