Farmers Almanac anyone?

Their long-range weather forecasting seems a bit ridiculous, but I've never actually tried using the almanac. It must be good for something or they wouldn't keep printing it. Do us and science a favor and try it out for a garden

Do you have a garden, and if so what are you growing there? You know how it is with me and plants Also, farmer's almanac is mostly useful for edible plants, right? Just my impression based mostly on the name.

 

I actually bought one this year because I have always been curious. Its cool but I don't think there is too much useful information that isn't googleable. It also has horoscopes which makes me believe the actual scientific information in it less.

 

My knowledge about plants is shallow and often wrong there's quite a lot to learn...

A simple, handy trick with those mushroom boxes--if you want, you can get mushrooms indefinitely. I assume you're using oyster mushroom kits? If so, take out the bag and add a substrate, ideally pasteurized (though I never pasteurized and it worked fine for me). I like to use cardboard because it's super easy to get, some people use coffee grounds but I was unsuccessful with those. The only rule is something woody with a high lignin content. Add it to the bag or transfer to a new bag, wait for the mycelium (the white, growing, moldy-looking part) to grow over the new substrate, and then treat it the same way. Just be careful--multiple times I got tiny, deformed mushrooms because they had insufficient oxygen, which happened because they were trying to grow out the top of a cut open bottle I used or in the bag I was using. So make sure they're growing out the side of the container, if possible, or that the substrate really reaches to the very top of the container. After all, if you're successful, there's nothing quite like fresh mushrooms a similar method can be applied to Portobello kits, but it's harder because the mycelium is hard to see. Usually you just have to take the whole substrate and mix it with the new one, or you could use spores from the mushrooms. One thing to remember is that you don't have to use the whole mycelium every time--this would quickly get out of hand. Only use the new, growing part, since the old mycelium often senesces anyway and grows less vigorously.

One of these days, when I have a little more space, I'm going to try something bigger and harder, like hen of the woods. Actually, maybe I'll just try it shortly...