Long awaited, this year’s first shiitake mushrooms have appeared! Even a winter with temperatures dropping to -30C, did not kill the mycelium which we inoculated alder and birch logs with last summer. Only a few of the logs produced mushrooms so far, but all have been colonised successfully. The chance of some much more substantial harvests in autumn seems good!

Inoculating logs is not all that difficult with the right tools and resources. We plan to organise an inoculation workshop this autumn on our farm (Två Ekar Gård) in Värmland, Sweden. We will advertise that workshop here.

If you’ve ever only tasted dried shiitake from the store, the taste of fresh shiitake simply fried in butter with some salt and pepper will blow you away. It is De-Li-Cious!

Shiitake has a very high vitamin D content, but especially so when it is dried in the sun with the gills up. In that case, one shiitake can contain all the vitamin D that one adult person needs per day. Needless to say, this is how we dry ours.

Apart from providing a vitamin D kick, shiitakes are, amongst many other things, good for the heart, the immune system, and are antiseptic, antiviral, antioxidant, anti tumor, anti diabetic, etc.

You may be very familiar with shiitake as an ingredient for food, but you may not be familiar with shiitake tinctures, or, better still, dual extracts.

We are going to use our first batch to produce a dual extract. Dual extracts are an extract in high quality alcohol, followed by an extract in water. Then the two extracts are combined. In this way, an optimal range of compounds can be teased from the mushroom in a very concentrated form. A few drops per day will do you well!

Keep an eye on our shop. Within three to five months, this should be available!

Find other products containing shiitake in our webshop