I have a mushroom farm in my back yard.

While everyone else is sowing turnip greens, I’m sizing up oak trees.

I grew up in central Arkansas. Crown jewel of southern U.S. bible-belt. Fried chicken is king. Mushrooms? The gray slugs on a pizza? No, thanks. I hear they taste like shoes.

Luckily, at some point in my life I found Japan, and took a look around. They are more into mushrooms than you would think. There are seven different kinds of mushrooms commonly found in any Japanese super market. No big deal.

I found Shiitake forests, rows and rows of logs set up, unfolding beautiful of shiitake bouquets. The catch was they were supposedly full of nuclear radiation. During the meltdown of the Fukushima-Daiichi powerplant, nuclear waste radiation had blown over the region was staying in. Mushrooms, I learned, absorb heavy metals such as uranium from the environment when they grow, making them store houses for radio active poison.

Fascinated by what I could not have, I thus began to notice mushrooms everywhere, edible or not. The Japanese country side is a biodynamic jungle. Island of ancient volcanos rising out of the sea. Rain, rivers, creeks, and streams are abundant across the forested mountains. These dewy, lush and shady micro-climates are the perfect environment for so many different kinds of mushrooms.

Moving back to the southeastern U.S. I brought my love and fascination of fungi back with me. I kept tabs on many of the same mushrooms and microclimates that I had seen in Japan. I was also itching to try some of the cultivation techniques I had seen while I was there. Particularly shiitake grown on hardwood logs was of interest to me because in my home state, Arkansas, forestry is a huge industry. There are saw mills, everywhere you turn. Drive a few hours. All you’ll see are trees and all you’ll pass is log trucks.

A neighbor of mine had a few logs leaned up behind his shed.

“Doug, these are supposed to be Shiitake logs but they’ve never put off any mushrooms that I can see. I probably let them get too dry.”

I took a look around and it was indeed dry.

“I’ll look into it.”

I’m a learn by doing kind of guy. In no time I had ordered some plug spawn and was gassing up my chainsaw. There were some oak trees out back that I knew were growing too close together. One had limbs hanging over our house. I sawed the trunk down into five, arm-length sections. When the plugs came I followed the instructions and inoculated my five logs. No big deal.

The next 8 months was the real kicker. I’m sure I must’ve looked silly out back with my water hose soaking down the five logs. I named them all after reindeer and imagined me Santa. I was making a list and checking it twice. These logs were not going to go dry!

So eight months, two weeks, and three days later (same gestation period of my first born child) there grew a perfectly upright shiitake mushroom right off Prancer’s back side. I was hooked.

Since then, my family and I have grown a lot of shiitakes right here in our back yard. Every year, our wood lot grows as we innoculate more logs. The tender, woodsy taste of freshly picked shiitake is unrivaled. Same with garden tomatoes verses some from the store. Once you get hooked on the taste, the annual work of preparing and planting happens all on its own.