Morel Patches Finished

…So I took an hour this week to go ahead and a finally make use of those bags of spawn i was sent. I made the outdoor patches near an old oak tree out in our woods. Morels can stand a little bit of filtered sunlight, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Also, the location underneath the old (ridiculously looking, seriously, this tree is messed up. I’ll have to put up a pic) oak makes it much easier to find.

I made the patch according to the directions, which was basically to spread the sawdust spawn I was sent (those bags I took a picture of in this post) on a well cleared patch of soil, and cover with more sawdust, plus a mix of sand and pea gravel. As a crazy unrelated side note, I LOVE pea-gravel! I like holding a handful and shaking it in my palms. It makes a very satisfying slightly crunchy, slightly swish-y noise! After that, I covered it with cardboard.

This method confused me a bit, because I thought morels didn’t grow on wood? So why the sawdust?

I really hope this works and I get some mushrooms out of it. Morels are highly sought after everywhere, especially places like here where they don’t grow in the wild. I’m really crossing my fingers on this one. This could do wonders for my self-esteem! Unfortunately, won’t know for sure until at least the spring.

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Ground scratched bare of vegetation and litter, so the spawn can make contact with the soil

The spawn, spread on the ground

The finished, watered down pile. Yes, I can’t see it either. It’s a cellphone, guys…

Putting Up Cross Fencing

So the past few weeks we’ve been working on cross-fencing the property. With several hundred broiler chickens running around, good fencing becomes very crucial to keep out the multitude of foxes, coyotes, dogs, possums, and possibly swamp monsters (you can never completely rule out swamp monsters….anywhere!).

Sadly, when we purchased the farm, there was no real cross fencing of any kind, and what little fencing there was got royally owned by Hurricane Katrina. We use, currently, rolls of eletrified poultry netting (which is a really good product, btw) to protect  our birds, but it’s turned into a ridiculously labor  intensive process. The rolls of netting make a rather small foraging area for the birds, and since we keep them in movable pens, the netting must be moved ALOT, as the pens move.

Permanent fence is much better.

So, through the NCRS’s EQUIP conservation program, which gives grants for certain types of conservation/agricultural development projects, we will be able to cross pretty much the entire property into 4 or 5 paddocks. Much of the land is forested, so we had to do quite a job of work clearing the fence lines.

So that’s what my pa and I have been up to, here’s some of our progress.

We rented an auger for the tractor. With the ground as hard as it is right now this was a must. Even with this I ended up having to stand on top on the gear box and hop up and down a little to get the auger to “bite”. Doing that, btw, is an excellent way to kill/maim yourself. It also looks silly.

Finished product with the auger.

Partial view of the first north-south fenceline

Gate by the pond on the north-south fenceline. There will be an east-west line coming right off the other side of this gate.

So that’s it for now, later this week we will be pulling the wire!  The wire will be a 4ft field fence, with two strands of barbed wire on top, and offset electrified wire along the bottom. Excited!

 

 

 

Magnolia Murder

I sell free range chicken and mushrooms.

To be a little more specific, I sell free range chicken and mushrooms under a magnolia tree.  At the farmer’s market in Covington, La to be exact.

It’s a small magnolia tree, but a tree nonetheless. I used to sell under a healthy, vibrant magnolia tree. Nowadays, because of some maniacal tree trimmer with a license to kill from the City of Covington; I sell under a mangled magnolia tree.

Here is the photographic evidence I took last weekend, and just noticed on my phone. I wish I had a before picture to show the difference, but I never thought I would need one, since there was no reason to believe, after years of uninhibited growth, that anything would happen to my wounded comrade.

             

 Current mood: Very anti-establishmentarian

Finally some rain!

I honestly can’t remember the last time we have had any rain, and I spent some time thinking about it. We got a little this morning, just enough to wet the ground, really. But I went out to the pasture and noticed it was enough for the ryegrass I planted forever ago to come up. Finally!

Morel Patch

I recently received a couple of bags of morel spawn from a great mushroom supply company that I frequently purchase from/beg for advice. They have always been very helpful and I was gratified when I was offered a kit of morel spawn for an outdoor patch using instructions for a method they had recently developed. Apparently it has worked well where they are located and they are looking for mushroom farmers in different climates to see how it works for them. As you probably know, morels are not widely grown commercially because there is no accepted method for cultivation that is not patented. For a long time cultivation was considered more of less impossible. So i’m really excited to get this patch started!

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