On Monday I mentioned, in passing, my adventures with trying to grow mushrooms. From this photo, it looks fairly successful, right? Read on.

The mushroom saga, for lack of a better title, began when the Spoiler saw a log that was supposed to grow mushrooms in a gift insert in our local paper. Since I was a little light on gifts for him, I thought that the log might be fun, even though I would be doing all the actual “growing. He would enjoy the eating part.

So I ordered it. It was a fairly complex thing. It had to be soaked 24 hours in non-chlorinated water before anything would happen. Do you have any idea how much water it takes to cover this log? Half a utility sink, exactly.

So I did that and then set it on a plate (like the other box is sitting) and waited. Nothing. They say if nothing happens in a week, repeat the process and cover the log because perhaps it needs moisture.

Back to the half utility sink of non-chlorinated water. Fortunately I had just bought some plants so I had a large covering available.

A week later, I was growing some nice white mold, but mushrooms–no. So the log is in my potting shed. I will try to get it to produce outside this summer.

Meanwhile , the Spoiler now is looking for mushrooms. So online I go, to this organic kit “guaranteed to grow.” I soak it according to instructions (no nonsense about non-chlorinated water, but I used some anyway), and as soon as I scored the inside of the box, I could smell a nice earthy smell. I knew that this would work.

Here’s the progress:

So this is an unqualified success! The Spoiler gets his mushrooms!

What on earth occasions the title of this post? What else? Misinformation that I saw somewhere over the weekend on social media.

Luckily, I have forgotten where I saw it but I suspect that it was Facebook or Twitter. The post said that a certain seed company–who will remain nameless because the post was wrong–was only accepting seed orders from commercial growers and woe is me, what on earth was the poster to do?

So of course the first thing I did–because this just sounded crazy to me–was to head over to that seed catalog’s web site. Yes, they are accepting commercial orders only–just until February 10. Is that such a crisis?

So I decided to see what some of the other organic and non-gmo seed companies are doing.

One is closed for the next 4 days to catch up. Another accepts orders only 2 days a week. Reasonable modifications during a global pandemic.

But seed shortages? Commercial selling only? No. Please read carefully. Please don’t panic. And most important, please don’t spread this mistake online and panic others.

I am guessing when you saw that title, insect damage wasn’t what you were thinking. But I confess, every time I see this leaf, I think back to the days when my house plants were outside–so late spring and summer.

In my climate, in an optimal year, if I am lucky, they go outside in early May and come back inside in early September. It’s not that September isn’t warm enough for them to stay outside. It’s a quality of light issue.

When they come back inside, the light level drops dramatically for them, even if I place them in South windows. So the sooner I can transition them in, while light levels are still relatively high, the better it is for them. There is significantly less leaf loss.

You wouldn’t think an insect would like to chew a leathery leaf like this, would you, but obviously it did. It took several bites out of several leaves. I find this extremely interesting. It just reminds me of what goes on outside that I never see.