Saturday

The mushroom caps are starting to form and the whole top has formed this white fuzzy snow (mycelium). The top of the bag was cut off, and the whole bag was placed inside an aerated plastic tub with a piece of wax paper resting on top. It's also out of the dark closet and resting on stool in the room with indirect light. I spritz it every other day with water to maintain the humidity. No funky bad smell, which was what the instructor would happen if it had gotten contaminated. I must say, it doesn't look very appetizing. Although the upkeep is pretty minimal, growing mushrooms seems a little time consuming and slow.

In the meantime, I've been occupying myself with other plants. I was reading about legumes replenishing the soil so I've been on a beans and peas kick. We're growing edamame, fava beans, peas, scarlet beans, snow peas, and sweet peas (I don't know if flowers count, but they're pretty).

Last weekend, I visited my family in LA. I ate lots of Chinese food, of course, and discovered a new love for A-Choy (Taiwanese lettuce) and Chinese okra (Angled luffa). A-Choy is almost like a skinny romaine lettuce, and the way it's prepared is usually sauteed with garlic. I'm not sure if I tried to cook romaine lettuce it would taste the same way, but it's possible. Chinese okra looks similar to a spiny bitter melon or cucumber. The consistency is a little slippery like regular okra, but it has more substance. It was a little hard to find the seeds because the names vary, and I was trying to make sure I was getting the right one. I found someone selling it on Ebay from Malaysia so I'm excited to grow it.

Chicken Fever

My parents are citrus farmers in Florida, and last July (soon after I told my mom that I got two chicks) she called me up to say that she got two chicks from a worker. Queenie and Brownie are wild and flighty with long legs, skinny body and brown feathers. Every time she'd let them out to roam in the orange grove, they would fly up into the trees and never come back. My mom wasn't satisfied with just two chickens, and once they started laying eggs, she borrowed a rooster to fertilize the eggs. Eventually 11 chicks hatched out of 14 eggs.

Still, she was envious of my fat and domestic chickens so last week, she got 3 Rhode Island Reds and 3 Ameraucanas. That's a lot of chickens.

Spring

Our first artichoke!

Learning to grow mushrooms

I grow lots of things in my garden, but the one thing I would never know how to grow on my own are mushrooms. There was a Mushroom Workshop being offered for a $20 fee, where we get our own growing kit, and I went with my friend Kristin. A biologist and then a mushroom expert took turns talking about mushrooms then showing us how to create our kit. It was fun deciding on what type of mushroom to grow: shitake, pioppino, oyster, lion's mane, rishii... In the end Kristin chose lion's mane, which is supposed to taste like lobster (yum!) and I chose pioppino, which is supposed to be meatier like pork.

We learned a lot in such a short time span. Mushrooms contain a agarestic toxin and should never be eaten raw. They should be cooked at 400 degrees F for 5 minutes on each side. Mycelium acts like the internet of the forest, communicating and transferring nutrients where needed. Scientists have only identified some 15,000 species of mushrooms but there are up to 1.5 million other unidentified species. 80% of our medicine uses mushrooms. Also, mushrooms are closer to humans than to the plant kingdom (this is weird) and should possibly be categorized in their own separate kingdom. I could go on, but it's really interesting!

Anyway, I think it should take about 10 days for things to start happening. I'll post the results.

Step 1: Prepare a clean substrate (wood chips)

Step 2: Select your spore

Step 3: Add the spore to your substrate

Step 4: Shake it up!

Yippee!

Hooray, Potato laid her first egg today! It came out light brown and smooth. If I were to equate the texture of the egg surface to wall paint, Potato's are a satin finish while T-Rex's are a matte finish. Her egg is pretty small, but that's okay, I'm still happy!

Kind of a big deal

T-Rex laid an extra large egg today. I'm guessing it's a double-yolked egg. I can't imagine the sounds she must've made as that was coming through. The egg is so large that I can't shut the lid on the egg carton. She's been laying consistently about 6 times a week. I keep waiting for Potato, but I worried she might be slow to mature. I read some Brahmas can take up to 2 years to lay an egg! What??? I've switched them over to organic feed, which is a little more than the regular kind. I think it's worth it though. I let them run around and eat all the weeds. I also read that the more foraging a chicken does, the better the eggs taste!

T-Rex's First Egg!

I haven't been posting as often as I like because I've been so busy. Hopefully, this year I'll have more time for updates. But today was momentous as T-Rex laid her first egg! It was a pale blue-green color and sitting in the nesting box perfectly. She's so smart. She also barely made a sound, not the loud crowing that I expected. Ameraucanas are supposed to be a quiet breed, and T-Rex definitely is one of the quietest. She didn't really seem to care that I was taking the egg so she must not be a broody either.

The idea of eating her egg does make my stomach turn a little, which I know is silly. Eggs are one of the main reasons I got chickens (aside from being nice garden companions that are slightly destructive if unchecked). I placed her egg next to a large grocery store egg so you can compare the size and color. I can't wait till tomorrow to see if more eggs arrive!