Tales from Easement Acres
I assumed these would come back, judging from the quantity of embedded mycelium that remains in the straw. And they did.
I did not, however, harvest them. I should have, to give to my dad, but I didn’t get around to it. Oh well. Still neat to look at. If not palatable, they’re still aesthetic, and it’s an interesting concept to consider that I now have a multi-year self-sustaining mushroom colony, provided I keep feeding it wood and straw. I’m still holding out of the blue oysters!
–Simon
My last mushroom farming attempt was successful, however the variety of mushroom I found to be unpalatable.
So this year, I’m attempting Blue Oysters. I like oyster mushrooms. I hope this works out. This variety came as plugs, which I then embedded into chunks of a freshly-cut maple branch lost to high winds.
Here’s hoping! If they don’t take, I’m sure the wine caps will be back. The straw in the bucket is heavily packed with mycelium from last year.
–Simon
In the spirit of phenologic trend monitoring, here are the first crocus blooms of 2026, as of 2/25:
3 days earlier than last year, but that’s probably insignificant. I’m making the guess that this year’s weather patterns will be similar to last year’s.
Next up: starting tomato seedlings.
–Simon
Following the great firewood processing of 2025, I was left with some junk wood remnants: rotten chunks, un-splittable end pieces, wood that absorbed too much mud over the years, etc. So I carefully stacked them into a pile and ended up with a…
No, not a haphazard pile of junk wood. A stumpery!
No really, this is a thing. The great Monty Don – Britain’s most famous master gardener, told me so.
And no, I’m not making this guy up either. The Brits are weird. He’s on Amazon streaming. Look it up.
The premise being, a pile of large chunks of wood can add visual interest to an otherwise over-manicured garden. Maybe, or it might just end up looking like a pile of junk. Which is why I’m attempting to inoculate it with mushroom spores.
I did successfully grow a mushroom patch last year, though the mushrooms themselves weren’t very tasty.
But for the purposes of the stumpery, I intend the mushrooms to be more ornamental than edible.
These packets are interesting. Little wooden plugs coated in mycelium, meant to be inserted into logs.
We shall see.
–Simon
Four years is hardly a sufficient data sample by which to predict trending weather, but I took my historical phenologic observations and graphed them nonetheless. It would turn out to reveal a short-term trend.
Dandelions are the outlier, and I didn’t start measuring all events on the same initial year, but there’s a noticeable dip – indicating a warm spell. That 2-year period returned to previous values last year.
I have yet to observe crocus flowers, but they are starting to bloom. And with all the recent snow, it would appear that we’re beginning to return to a cooler seasonal climate.
Interesting. I shall continue to monitor this. I may delay planting dates.
–Simon