How too plant Shiitake Mushroom plugs..this works!

Hey, this is Josh Stony Ridge farmer. Want to talk to you today about planting shiakei mushrooms. We got some shiakeis, not to be confused with shiake, no shiakei. So, let's get started. So, I went on to amazon.com and found some shiakei mushroom plugs. These are from mushroommojo.com out of Salt Lake City. They're little plugs, wooden dowels as you can see, that will go into the wood that we're going to use. Uh, some of them are all clumped together. I've had them in the refrigerator for a while. They come with a set of instructions, uh, about the mojo plugs. That's what they're called for shiakei mushrooms. Tells you everything you need to know about how to plant the shiakei. But I'm going to tell you, too. Give you some tips cuz I'm not that bright. But I can teach you something. So, the instructions tell you to uh drill a hole in these logs with a 5/16, I believe. Yep. 5/16 bit and put your holes 4 in apart and stagger them as you drill. And I'll show you how I do that. Uh it's pretty simple. Uh, I think it said to put almost 50 plugs per log. And I'll show you my logs. Also, we're going to cover our plugs with some wax. I got this wax, paraffin wax, um, or craft wax. Very difficult to find at Walmart when your people that are helping you are not so bright. So, I searched all over Walmart in the craft area. Look in the gelatin and jello type section. That's where it was. It was right by the gelatin. So, here's the logs we're going to use. I got maple, oak, maple. I want to try a couple different ones, but it doesn't recommend that you use a soft wood like pine, so we use a hardwood like oak. Didn't want to use popppler, but we've got plenty of trees on the farm, so I hacked a couple down here. And, uh, this is fresh green cut yesterday, and we're going to drill some holes. Instructions say 4 in 4 in apart. Well, I took this here scientific thing right here and I measured my dagum finger and look at there. It's about 4 in. So, we going to use that finger instead of this ruler cuz this ruler it works but it ain't all that good. So, I got my holes drilled in my log. And then I'm going to put my plugs in. I'm going to use this right here to melt my wax. Dab it over my holes. It said it's supposed to be set one/4 inch Couple of recommendations. I've got a rubber hammer here that I'm knocking these uh wooden dowels in. They're uh it's, you know, I'm inoculating, fancy word for knocking in the wooden dowels, inoculating the wood with our uh mushrooms. Uh had I had to do it again, I would use a paddle bit, not a standard bit in my drill. And uh we'll see how the wax goes on here in a minute. But I don't know how I'm supposed to knock them a/4 inch deep when the wood's round and the mallet's flat. So I guess I'll just seal them off good with wax and we'll see how they do. It takes about a year for these things to uh get growing. So I'm going to get back to it. I wanted to do a little closeup on what these dowels look like. So here's what it looks like. I dropped that in the dirt. Um, we're going to give you a little closeup of uh putting it in the log here. hole. So, we get our dowel set and we just tap it in or we bend it over and break it. Knocking them in. So, I'm no shiitakei mushroom expert. You guys that uh are experts might see what I'm doing and tell me something I'm doing wrong. Please uh leave me messages, subri subscribe to the channel. Um this is what I'm doing. I'm going to cover them up with wax once I've inoculated two logs. Basically, one bag contains enough u little tabs, u wooden dowels to inoculate two logs. So, I'm going to inoculate two logs, put them close, fairly close to my garden. That way, I can water them every time I water my pigs, which are in the garden right now. And we can watch. It says it takes about a year for them to mature. So, we'll see if we get shiakei mushrooms in a year. If it explodes, who knows? If it does really good, we may may order uh many more shiakei mushrooms and sell it to local restaurants. I really want you to take the time to notice how I'm using my gut as another hand cuz I have this hand that's busy and this hand that's busy, but this hand is not busy. It is a support hand. That's how you adequately use your gut to support things. So, show you It's like having a third hand or a third arm almost. Okay. So, I'm just going to melt my wax here. Comes in a big square. Just had a can laying around. Uh I'm not sure what was in that can, but uh I don't advocate for any kind of non-Christian beverages. Uh especially when you're working with fire. So, I'm got the wax nice and hot here. Um, got myself a Turn our flame off. Got myself a little foam brush here. We're going to dip and dab. Dip and dab and dab and dab and dab. I was trying to get away with not using a a paintbrush to do this with, uh, but it was going to be a royal pain in the butt and make a huge mess. So, that's it. Just dip and dab. So, while I'm down here dabbing wax on this stuff, I I want to talk about why we do this. Why Why would I do this? I could go buy shiakei mushrooms. This is probably more shiakei mushrooms than I'll ever eat uh that this log will produce. Why am I doing this? Because I'm curious. Aren't you curious? If you're not curious, then you know what do you have to look forward to in life without curiosity? You need to if you don't have anything in your life right now that sparks your curiosity, then uh find something. Give yourself a reason to wake up in the morning and enjoy the day. There's there's no reason to have a smug attitude about life. I uh hear people talk about I'm not a morning person. Oh, I'm not a morning person. Oh, I'm not a morning person. Give me a break. Give me the another excuse for why you're a miserable human being. Be a morning person. Wake up happy. Every day I'm a nurse. Every day I go into work. I know one thing. I'm taking care of somebody who's in worse shape than I am and then needs me. Find somebody that needs you. Find a purpose. Find a hobby. Find something that's fun. Something that's intriguing. Be it reading or writing, write a book. It's my next project over the winter. So, don't give me this I'm bored or I'm not a morning person. Do something. Learn something. Use your hands and your brain. So, now we're going to ride down to the uh garden area here. And uh I'm thinking about maybe not putting these in the garden. I'm thinking about putting them down by the creek uh in our little spot we go hang out. It's a real pretty spot. We'll give it a little bit of thought here. But, uh maybe for the first shiakei mushrooms, we'll put them close by the house. And if they're successful, we'll put the uh next batch down by the creek where uh we go sit and relax and let the dog play. So, we're down here at the garden. Got the piggies back here behind me. Uh I got some sunflowers still blooming. It's uh November, but it was uh 70° today, so beautiful day. I'm going to put right here a stack of uh wood. Um keep the shiakeis up out of the ground like the instructions say. So, here it goes. We'll uh construct this little shiakei uh apparatus. That's where we're going to put them. Uh we'll water them uh once or twice a week and see what we get. Baby, here's a baby. All right. Once again, this is Josh, Stony Ridge Farmer, coming live from Stoneville, North Carolina. Thanks for watching. subscribe to us and uh hopefully you can learn something about farming and life and uh the good way of living. Thanks for watching. So, this portion of the video is to the lady that wouldn't sell me a German Shepherd because it would be outside and it would not get time with the family and therefore it would be mean. So, are you mean? Are you mean dog? You're not a mean dog. See, it's not a mean dog. You're not a mean dog. Oh, okay. Eat your heart out, lady. You suck. Well, okay. Thank you. I knew that. That's right. Uh, if you don't like this video, I'm sorry. Uh, but you're stupid.