Everything finally came together at the right time! We had planned on doing this last year but there were a few too many logistics missing… This year we had the right bit to drill the holes, the right tool to put the “sawdust spawn” into the holes and (with some trips to the store) wax to cover the holes! (And, the best part, wax daubers!)
We also timed cutting down the trees perfectly. We cut down some Trembling Aspen/White Spruce trees to reduce shade in the greenhouse area. The trees were cut down while dormant and (for the deciduous) before they had leaves! We then used the chainsaw to cut them into slightly more manageable sizes (fresh trees are so very very heavy!) We then had prepared in the (kitchen) lab Phoenix Oyster mycellium on sawdust (aka sawdust spawn).
It will take a while but we’ll see what happens! We may not see fruiting until next year (or ever) but we’ll watch over the summer of signs the mycellium are taking over the logs. Hopefully we have enough rain to not have to manage the moisture levels but we can run a sprinkler if we need to. (Amazingly this area of our forest is right behind the house!)