Growing mushrooms Day 4

I've been too busy looking at light fixtures for the new house to do much cooking but I have remembered to water my mushroom logs. They've been resting on damp sponges in their little tents for the last few days. Each day I give the oyster and pom pom mushrooms a sprinkle of water and make sure the sponges are still wet. The shiitake log has a different treatment. It sits in an inflated bag and has been growing fuzzier every day.

When I watered yesterday, I noticed that a few small bumps had formed on the oyster mushroom log. This morning those bumps had developed into 1 1/2 inch stalks with little caps on them! Then I took a closer look at the shiitake log which was supposed to still be in the preparation stage. Overnight mushrooms formed on the bottom of the log. One little mushroom was over an inch tall already! I gave the company a call to find out if I should skip ahead to the growing stage and got their ok. Since the mushrooms were sprouting on what was the bottom of the log I laid the log horizontally when I placed it on the sponge. According to the directions I should be harvesting my first mushrooms 2-7 days from now. I think it's the wonderful fall weather we're having that is causing them to grow so well.

*Abbie (my cat) was very interested in the mushroom logs. You can see her behind the logs in the first picture and she sniffed the oyster log for the longest time.

The sprouting Sonoma brown oyster mushroom logThe oyster mushrooms emerging Baby Sonoma brown oyster mushrooms The shiitake log A baby shiitake mushroom Abbie giving the oyster log a sniff Bonus Abbie shot

Growing Mushrooms Day 1