Mushrooms are versatile food sources that can serve as a meat alternative in your low-calorie diet. Shitake mushrooms are easier to grow than you may think. You’ll want to start with a hardwood logs like a chestnut or sugar maple, but their favorite hardwood is oak.
You’ll want to cut the wood after the fall leaves have fallen but before the spring flowers bloom and be careful to find wood that is disease free. Trim any branches off the logs and stack them in perpendicular stacks to create a square with enough breathing room for fungus to grow. Shitake mushroom spawn or seeds come in three weather specific types and you can order these online. Shitakes will produce six to eighteen months after inoculation and will continue to produce for four to six years.