Potatoes vs. Weeds

Guess which grows fastest? Go on, guess? Does this image give any ideas?. Seems like every week no matter how many you removed 3 more spring up to replace them . . . and they grow 3 times as fast as the useful stuff. So a couple of hours weeding and hey presto!

Just about manageable. Question is, what do do with the weeds. Compost I guess, so time to

build some compost bins and see if I can get that ellusive 'hot heap' going.

Mushrooms

Having tried to grow mushrooms in the airing cupboard without any success some years ago it is with a certain level of expected failure that I have embarked on it again.  All you need is some mushroom plugs, fresh cut wood, a dark place and time.  Apparently.

Fortunately, the a guy on my street is a tree surgeon, so getting the wood was no problem. Fresh wood is essential as the mushroom grows by 'eating' the wood, so it needs to be fresh to contain enough moisture.

The plugs could be bought on the Internet and I live in Britain, so no issue with dark places.  When you get the plugs, the look like small dowling pegs with fur growing on them (well, at least mine did).  I hope this is a good sign.

Next thing that needs to be done is make some holes in the wood for the plugs to go into.  Out with the trusty drill and time to make holes.  Tricky this bit, drilling a fresh cut log ain't like making a hole in the wall or a plank of wood that stays still.  This wood is round a rolls, so ignoring all sense of health & safety I just stood on one end and drilled away.  The holes are in 3 columns at 90 degree separation and 8 rows, with about 4 inches (10 cm) between holes.  Each hole is the same depth as the plug and just wider.

Next, just push the plugs into the holes.  The holes are only just larger than the plugs (well, you don't want them to fall out!

Any finally it's recommended that you plant the bottom 1/3 of the log in the ground in a dark shady place.  Well, the place I have in mind is between 2 walls with a soil pipe underneath so no chance of burring there!  I'll just have to hope that the pots do the job.

So the burning question  is will I get any mushrooms?  I've *planted* Oyster and Shitake and the packet claims that I should get 3 to 5 crops a year for 3 to 5 years.

Here's hoping.

Famous Last Words

Cover them up, water them in and sit back and wait till June! ranks up there with the comments Sir Thomas Bloodworth made when he passed comment on the Great Fire of London for accuracy.  I went down about 10 days after I planted the spuds to see how they were coming along.  There were some signs of them coming though, just about.  The hard part was seeing the spud plants though all the weeds.  So several hours and 3 buckets of weeds later and the spuds could be seen.

Sadly no photos as I forgot the camera.