Here is how my garden ended up. The vines will give me some good head cover once they get green. I lined the bottom with cardboard and then layered straw and hardwood chips. 3 layers of each with sawdust spawn spread in the straw layers. About 7-8 inches of straw and wood chips total. The logs are all Shiitake logs. I will add more next year if it goes good in the box.
Thanks for all the info! This is on my to-do list. 
Its super easy to be honest. They sell a smaller kit that sell wood dowels and the wax so the only tool you need is a drill, hammer and a small crock pot or something to melt the wax. Here is a photo of the 1st two logs I did with this method.
The last two years I joined a group of guys and we use sawdust spawn and he has all the tools for inoculating fast. We can run about 150-200 logs in a day and everyone gets to take a few home. I believe I have about 30 logs now so will get more mushrooms that a guy can use.
Wine caps are grown in the ground. You can buy 5 lbs of sawdust spawn for 25 bucks and this species will grow right in your straw garden covering or wood mulch. I am finishing my garden bed tonight and will take a photo. It is 6×6 ft and will hold all my logs and the ground cover will be wine caps. Looking forward to seeing how it does.
Great info! Thank you. I’m going to have to give it a go. Love fresh mushrooms. Hopefully we’ll get a break in the rain tomorrow and can get some foraging in. It’d be awesome to be able to walk into the backyard though!
Post a pic of your mushroom garden when you get it going! I need ideas.
How has it worked for you!? I’ve been interested in trying to grow our own as well. I’ve seen the “mushroom” logs you can make or buy, but I’m intimidated lol. What process do you do to grow your own? What kind of yield do you get?
Dusty Eagle – Dalbo
Great Breakfast & all around fun joint.
Wild River Bar & Grill – Almelund
Great Burgers, Stiff Drinks.
Outback Saloon & Grill – Stanchfield
Good, Cheap Grub
19 gallons?!?! Are you making some whiskey with that or what?? Thats a lot of pancakes
Never thought about making whiskey! Neighbor uses it & makes Amaretto. It’s me and two buddies. So we split it up. The neighbors get some for helping with wood cutting and collecting sap. My buddies parents get some for letting us use their land. We will sell some to friends to offset the costs of hose, buckets, taps, etc. When all is said and done, I brought home a little over 4 Gallons. I’ll give some away to family. I use a little bit to cook with in my Hamburgers, Homemade Bacon, Venison Breakfast Sausage. It gets used up one way or another.
The season was a longer than usual one. We went six weeks and called it after that. I don’t think we’ll ever start tapping trees in January again, but you never know. It was a nice, fun, long season.
I estimate 700-800 gallons of sap and we ended up with 19 Gallons of finished Syrup.
How’d your seasons go!?
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Lots of fish going by today! The clarity isn’t as good as it was, but to be expected.
Sorry for your loss, Jon. My deepest condolences to you and your family.
I’d head right up the gut on 35W and pick up the Hwy 65 route. Traffic has been relatively light all winter if you time it well. The Google-ater then should bring you up through Grand Rapids to U.S. Hwy 2 west then past Deer River to Hwy 46 north.
This is the way we always go. But I’m not coming from the cities.
Tree’s are still running good in our area! We boiled down a little over 200 gallons this last weekend and already have 110 gallons collected this week. So far we have a hair over 11 Gallons of syrup canned. Temps still looking great for the next 10 days. Usually we’re just getting going about this time most seasons.
A lot depends on what day and time are you leaving?
We left Isanti last Friday at 4am & went up 65. Only saw one other wheel house the whole way. If your leaving after work on a Friday idk which would be better. 169 up through elk river can really suck on a Friday afternoon. But 65 and all its stop lights from Blaine to Cambridge can really suck too. Like I said, it’s going to be all about what time you’re leaving & when.
Congratulations Ron, to you and the family!!
Emptied buckets last night before the freeze and ended up with another 130 gallons. That’s our biggest 2 day haul this season. Temps get a little warm this weekend but right back to where they need to be on Monday.
Wow Dan! That’s a lot of sap for a few days. How many taps are you guys running?
I guess so much for wanting to get Hartman going then huh? Just look at his lineup placement the past 4-5 games…
Just keep talking smack about the guys we need to produce. It seems to work almost every time. Except Gaudreau. I don’t think it matters where you put him. He’s about as worthless as a football bat.. As for the game last night, they got outplayed & had a chance to win, but just couldn’t hold on. Really could have used a PP goal to seal the deal.
On a side note, couple of you guys are really goods with stats. How has the PP and PK ranked this month compared to the rest of the league? I feel they have been much, much better on both as of late.
Still below freezing for lows, here, except for Saturday & Sunday. I don’t think it’ll mess anything up. Just my 2 cents. I’ve been wrong a few times before.
It will be interesting to see what happens when it’s 15 degrees Wednesday with a 20mph wind out of the North after being 65 degrees today.
Yes, generally the warmer weather will shut them down. That’s usually the cue to call it a season. But with the temps going from 58 today to 1 degree tomorrow night it won’t wreck anything & will force some frost back into the soil. The ground in the woods in Cambridge was still hard Saturday. Now next weekend it might be the end. Hard to say. I’ve only been doing it for 10 years and have obviously never had a season quite like this. It gets a little bit on the warm side for a day or two then the bottom just drops right out. And I think that’s been helping. Its been happening every week since January when we put our taps out.
How’s everyone’s season going? We collected another 120 gallons last week and got it boiled down. We are up to a little over 6 Gallons of syrup for the year. We’ll still collect this week and see what the temps do in the long run before making a decision to pull our taps. Usually we’re just getting started in a week or two. We’re hoping for a prolonged season.
Good reminder! I just bought and printed a new one. one less thing to try and remember before heading to LOTW this weekend to put the beat down on some big pike!
Sounds like a great afternoon B-man!!
Gonna try to flavor any of your syrup? Adding a vanilla or cinnamon stick into the jars can be pretty tasty.
I can attest to this. It gives it an amazing flavor! We usually do a gallon with the added goodies. Half a cinnamon stick and a teaspoon or 2 of vanilla per pint. You wont regret it!
The season has been all over the place for us. 65 gallons a couple weeks ago. 120 gallons last weekend and about 25 gallons this week so far. I don’t expect it to run much if at all for the next four days. So far we’ve finished 4.5 gallons. Most likely taking a weekend off and we’ll see what we collect for sap next week. Hopeful for a “second” season.
Went out after work and collected what sap we had. Ended up with a little over 40 gallons. The neighbor made it sound like buckets were overflowing. They weren’t 
But, from Tuesday night until Thursday afternoon we accumulated 40 gallons. Put out another half dozen taps and got our storage barrels setup. Saturday we’ll get the cooker in place and cook down what we have. Things go the way they are going we should have 90-100 gallons to boil down.
B-Man, That ain’t cheatin’!! BTU’s is BTU’s!! Let er rip!
We’ll be boiling this weekend, no doubt. I’m off work at 230 and heading to the Sticky Icky Shack. If buckets are as full as I’m told, we’ll be sitting on 60+ gallons of sap. Now I gotta find something for the Smoker on Saturday! My Pork Butts are froze solid…
Of sap or syrup?
Syrup. My bad. lol
Got a phone call and it has been running like crazy! Was planning on getting our storage barrels ready tomorrow but some our 5 gallon pails are full and others half full! So they’ll be getting a good pressure wash and then we’ll go collect.
I can’t believe how much its ran the last 2 days! Fingers crossed for a good season. Last year was our worst season ever & we’ve been doing it for 10 years now. One year we ended up with 16 gallons of sap. Last year only 5 gallons.
Where you at in Cambridge? I am from the Cambridge area and still have folks live down there.
I grew up in Isanti, graduated from Cambridge. Now live in Harris.
My buddy’s folks live NW of town kind of near the gun club. That’s where we have our syrup operation.
Completely agree, I’m just saying I’m not ready, and at this rate I’ll be overwhelmed in a hurry with this crazy weather. I really want to use wood for fuel and I’m not ready yet. Thought I had another 6 weeks to get going lol
We’re not ready at all either! Lol. Today we’ll get the holding tanks rinsed out and start getting our cooker in place. If they run all week like they were yesterday, we’ll be cooking Saturday, no doubt!
My lord you guys are tapping already lol.
I was thinking about it but man we still have a long ways to go in northern MN, and who knows what the weather will bring.
It seems way to early for me as well! But the temps here around Cambridge the next 10 days are perfect and I don’t see much of change in the long run. Gotta get while the gettin’s good. lol
Went for it yesterday afternoon and put out all 50 taps. 85% of the trees were leaking as soon as we drilled the hole and pounded in the tap. Of the dozen or so that were out from this past weekend, we’re sitting on about 8 gallons already. Some trees are running better than others. Curious to see how long the season goes. Especially after last years dismal season. The temps look perfect for as far as they are forecasting.
we started with a 12 tap trial run on Saturday. Almost all the trees are leaking. Heading out today to add a few dozen. Hard to believe we’re tapping trees in January, but here we are.
