Good heavens – this is the latest Jack has been with his Wednesday post – –

Wendy decided that, since I like mushrooms, we should grow them. Well – –

First we got a small pre-seeded pack and got a first harvest. We waited for the second promised harvest until we realized we’d wrongly removed the first lot. So no second or third harvest!

Then we got a larger pre-seeded pack and that’s doing its thing in a dark cupboard with daily spraying of water – we await in anticipation and will be more careful.

Then a friend, who has much more experience, brought us a large tub of sheep shit so we could establish a mushroom bed under a shady tree in our yard. That would need some actual mushroom spores so onto Dr Google. I settled on a company in Maine who seem reliable.

Following the Fedex delivery progress was hilarious –

Maine to Glasgow (that’s Glasgow, Virginia which is just up the interstate 81 from us), then to Charlotte North Carolina (a long way south of us), then to Concorde NC (probably Charlotte airport), from there to Dublin (yep – in Virginia and also north of us on I-81). It finally arrived this morning and is in the fridge until I can prepare its bed.

In case you’re interested I will be using the ‘lasagna’ method – a layer of cardboard, a layer of sheep shit and sawdust, first layer of mushroom spores. Another layer of sheep shit and sawdust, another layer of spores and a final layer of clean dirt.

The only problem I see is that I have to keep watering the bed every couple of days but won’t get any mushrooms until next year!

I used to teach management programs in my old college in Scotland and I was a manager too – there’s a famous style of management called ‘mushroom management’ – – – –

Keep them in the dark and feed them shit – – – –