Best Chipper Shredder for the Homestead 2018

A Chipper / Shredder can be an invaluable asset on a small homestead.  Not only does it help you clear unwanted brush and yard waste, it lets you do so in a way that produces mulch and compost.  Up to this point we’ve used ours mostly to create mulch for our paths, our firewood area, and a couple of recreational areas.  But we’re looking forward to using the shredder to produce finely chopped carbon for our composting.  Chipping won’t really produce the type of material you need.  But the chipper breaks wood, bark, and leaves down to small enough pieces to get good surface contact with the greens in your compost piles.  It’s a win / win / win. After

Chicken Processing Workshop with Patricia Foreman

In September we had an opportunity to attend a hands-on chicken processing workshop at the Mother Earth News Fair at Seven Springs, Pennsylvania.  The workshop was presented by Patricia (Patty) Foreman, Michael Badger, and Matt Wilkinson.  If you know anything about poultry, you’ll know that these folks are kind of the celebrities of the chicken world.  And they did a fantastic job of leading our group from a live, clucking, flapping chickens to a ready-to-package set of chicken cuts. I’ve butchered plenty of deer, squirrels, and rabbits before.  But I’ve never slaughtered and processed a chicken.  It’s really a very different process.  But it’s really pretty simple when you have experienced people showing you how, and giving you feedback in

We have FUNGI!

Yes, yes, I know I harvested this one early.  What can I say, I got excited.  This is the first shitake that has fruited on the logs I inoculated last December.  I’ve had plenty of fruitings on pre-inoculated logs, but not on logs I inoculated myself. First, that’s a really quick fruiting, so things seem to be going well.  I was a bit concerned, as there have been some false turkey tail ( or some kind of shelf mushroom anyway) growing on my new logs, and I was worried they would take over the whole logs before the shitake had established.  But it looks like I was worried for nothing, because the shitakes are kicking butt and taking names.  Excellent!

Inoculating Shitake Mushroom Logs

Today we’ll walk through the process of inoculating oak logs with Shitake mushroom logs.  Using this method you can grow mushrooms for your own use, for sharing with friends and family, or for selling to CSA, farmers’ markets, or to restaurant customers.  With just $30 of commercial spawn and a few inexpensive tools, you can be harvesting your own mushrooms in just a few short months.