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.