Brown Oyster’s Last Stand

It has been nearly six months since we began growing brown oyster mushrooms from a log and I think their period of bounty has finally come to an end.

Some people say the log will last for a couple months and the few say you can milk it for a couple years.  I believe our log made its final stand over a month ago with a beautiful, lone flower-like mushroom, and sadly I have not been able to restart it since.

We have had about four small flushes of mushrooms totaling about 1.5 pounds. The total cost of the log, including shipping and handling, was about $20.00, meaning that our mushrooms cost us a little more than $13.00 per pound—and there’s the time I’ve spent caring for it to factor in, too.

As much as I love growing my own food, I can’t support paying that much for mushrooms that should cost about $8.00 per pound, especially if it means waiting for the log to fruit whenever it darn well pleases.  I consider myself to be an efficient and self-sufficient woman, but for good fresh oyster mushrooms, the grocery store—or a farmer’s market—might be a better source.

Our last brown oyster mushroom.