Growing Mushrooms

The recent popularity of Mycelium Running by mycologist Paul Stamets has set off a flurry of activity around here. Suddenly, the idea of cultivating mushrooms, specifically Morels has gone from "crazy," to "logical," and is rapidly approaching "imperative." Swell.

Mushrooms require consistently moist conditions and deep mulch, so growing them fits right in with raising worms, but that's another story. The important point is that cultivating fungi is consistant with the practice of organic gardening, and a great human-scale method of carbon sequestration. Given that mushroom varieties other than the common Agaricus bisporus are typically gourmet items, cultivating these valued delicacies is a practical way to put some variety into your cooking, or possibly even starting a sideline business.

By all accounts, the two "must have" books for mushroom cultivation are Stamets' Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms and Mushroom Cultivator: A Practical Guide to Growing Mushrooms at Home (with J. S. Chilton). That being said, there is every possibility that you can get acceptable results with far less research. Your local agricultural extension office should have some basic materials, and after all you are just facilitating a natural process. Just as anybody can put some seeds in the ground and enjoy a beginner's gardening experience, there's a good chance that you can put down some appropriate wood chip mulch or log, (see 100 Edible Mushrooms), get a mushroom kit, and stand back!

Now obviously the more you know the better your results will be, but don't let an obsessive desire for immediate perfection become an obstacle to getting started! The worst that can happen is that you'll have to start from scratch and try again. You might also be interested in:

• Mushrooms Demystified: A Comprehensive Guide to the Fleshy Fungi
• National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms
• Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web
• Medicinal Mushrooms: An Exploration of Tradition, Healing, & Culture
• Maitake Magic
• The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms

Get True Uninterruptable Power with Tripp Lite

Most uninterruptable power supplies would be better termed shutdown power supplies. They protect your computers and other sensitive electronic equipment from disatrously abrupt shutdown during breif power outages, but they typically will only sustain operation for a few minutes while power is restored, either by the public utility or on-site generators. Then, when their meager batteries run low, they signal your computer to shut down normally. This is all very worthwhile, but it won't allow you to run internet servers reliably, or even continue your dungeon-crawling if online gaming is more your style.

What you need is a Tripp Lite APS2012 2000W UPS, or if you're serious about converting to off-grid power, perhaps it's 48-volt cousin, the 2400W APS 2448. These units take the admonition "batteries not included" to new heights, but that's a good thing. You can outfit these with deep cycle marine batteries (the kind electric trolling motors use) or, if you're installing the unit indoors, large SLA batteries designed for electric wheelchairs and scooters. Connect as many as you think you'll need in parallel to add up to the desired Ah rating. (1 Ah = 1 Amp current x 1 hour)

Note that one user commented that he was "only" getting 18 months to two years battery life with this unit, which he felt might be due to overcharging since the unit continuously supplies a float charge to the batteries. It seems that it would be easier to cycle the entire unit off (i.e., on battery power) periodically by adding a simple lamp timer to the circuit, than to modify the unit internally as he suggested. If you add a cord to the hard-wired junction box the unit comes with, be sure you get the "hot" and "return" lines right. Most equipment will work if these are reversed, but it negates the effectiveness of the ground line. You can check all this with an inexpensive circuit analyzer. You will also want a power usage meter to ensure that you are operating within specifications. (Since published power requirements are necessarily conservative, you might find that you can support more equipment than you thought.)

Now that you're thinking along the lines of serious batteries, chargers, and invertors, you might want to take the next step, and recharge using solar panels and an appropriate charge controller. That discussion will have to wait, though, while I delve a litle deeper into Amazon's new Home Improvement Section.

Before you settle on this solution, though, you shold be aware that complete standby power systems are much cheaper than they were a few years ago. Once an item available only for mission-critical commercial installations, they have become commonplace in new home construction. The increased volume has brought the per-unit cost down to a few thousand dollars, so you might just want to put your whole house on standby power.

Free Shipping Specials on Generators

Free shipping on portable generators (limited offer) permalink
Free shipping on standby generators (limited offer) permalink

Perricone's 10 Recommended Supplements @ Amazon.com

There is a tremendous amount of confusion surrounding nutritional supplements, due in part to the FDA's bizzare regulatons for these products. Conspiracy buffs may want to read Kevin Trudeau's popular Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You To Know About, although listening to his ubiquitous infomercial is sufficient to get the gist of the problem.

Given that one risks prosecution for practicing medicine without a license even for making accurate statements about the uses and properties of supplements, where can one hope to find reliable information? One excellent source is the handful of practicing physicians who incorporate supplements in their practice.

You may have seen The University Lecture Series with Dr. Nicholas Perricone during PBS "pledge week" or any of Dr. Perricones's books or other DVD's. Perricone is a dermatologist, so perhaps it is understandable that he emphasizes the effects of these products on healthy, youthful-looking skin, although I personally find The Brain-Beauty Connection more compelling. In any case, his audience seems very receptive.

The list below comes from my notes on the PBS program, and a little further research will convince you that there is considerable consensus that these are the basic supplements anyone should consider, with the possible exception of Maitake SX Fraction, which has a specific (although very common) indication.

Much has been said about the quality of supplement products. Undoubtedly, some are better than others, and tend to be more expensive. However, higher price is no guarantee of quality. I feel that even the cheapest brands are "better than nothing," if you are trying something to see if it seems beneficial. If you decide to add a supplement to your regular regimen, you can do a little further research into which brands are best.

Dr. Perricone markets his own brand of supplements, which I'm sure are very high-quality. They are by no means cheap.

Perricone's Top 10 Recommended Supplements

• Omega 3 Oil
• Glutamine
• Acetyl L-Carnatine
• Coenzyme Q-10
• Conjugate Linoleic Acid
• Chromium
• Alpha Lipoic Acid
• Gamma Linoleic Acid
• Borage (Source of GLA)
• Maitake SX-Factor
• Whole Maitake Mushrooms
• Green Tea
• Green Tea Extract

Camera & Photography Listmania @ Amazon.com

The first thing you need to ask yourself, is film or digital? Film is essentially analog -- you can enlarge your images as much as you need to without revealing the individual pixels, although at some point you will encounter "graininess." This may be important in the most demanding art and sometimes technical photography. You may even need to consider large or medium film formats. Superior quality lenses are also required in these instances, with brands like Carl Zeiss and Hasselblad coming to mind. For the vast majority of applications, though, digital photography will be a more logical choice.

Single-Lens Reflex and their digital counterparts are popular choices for most professional photography, offering a wide selection of lenses and settings for maximum control of photographic parameters. (Single-lens refers to the fact that the viewfinder and image-collecting medium use the same lens through an arragement of prisms and mirrors.) Nikon and Canon are probably the most used, although several other brands like Olympus and Minolta also offer very accepatable picture quality at a somewhat lower price. One photographer I knew swore by Pentax, and although some might disdain his equipment, he certainly had a lot of it!

Most people will be happy with some version of the Point-and-Shoot snapshot camera. The bad news is that you have less control over photographic variables. The good news is that you need not control the photographic variables. Amazon.com doesn't specify a third class of digital camera: the live preview or bridge camera which combines features of the DSLR and Point-and-Shoot types. For many this will be the best of all possible worlds, and at a reasonable price. Example include: various members of the Panasonic Lumix Series cameras, the Fuji Finepix Series, and certain Kodak Easy-Share cameras, to name but three.

Here are some thoughts from Amazon customers who are probably much better versed in photography than I:

Photography Listmania

1. My dSLR Setup
2. The Perfect Canon Digital SLR Setup
3. Digital Cameras & Supplies
4. Minimalist (yet effective!) Midrange Digital Photography Kit
5. Colorado Photographer
6. My Photography Setup
7. Moderate D-SLR List
8. Prosumer Travelographer
9. Average couple's camera set up
10. Nikon Starter
11. Building My Canon EOS 40D Kit
12. Pro Weddings on the Budget
13. John Harrington's Best Business Practices for Photographers
14. Photography
15. Nikon D80 gears
16. A great DSLR Setup
17. Nikon D50 Nice-To-Haves
18. My Photo Gear
19. The Ultimate Digital Photographers Shopping List
20. Nikon D40x basic setup
21. Ultimate Wedding Photographer Essentials
22. My first digital SLR camera
23. The Camera setup that I can't afford but hope someone will buy for me
24. Nikon Professional Digital Wedding Photographer
25. Photography Must Haves
26. Canon EOS Rebel Xti Essentials
27. Photography Equipment
28. Digital Cameras-my favorite 8 megapixal cameras
29. Digital Camera and Accessories for Beginning Photographer
30. Accessories for Canon S2 IS Digital Camera
31. Digital Cameras--my top 7 megapixal cameras
32. My Camera Bag
33. I'm a stupid gear-whore photographer that wants everythign
34. Canon 40D - Sport Photography
35. Tiny digital cameras, packed with features
36. Cameras
37. Comparing the Canon Powershot A-series cameras
38. The Photographic Paradigm
39. Canon EOS 30D - Trial & Error my digital outfit
40. DSLR Junkie
41. Comparing the Nikon D40, D80 and D200
42. My photo gear
43. Camera Ideas for Chris
44. Nikon D40 great setup
45. Favorite Gear for Photography
46. Everything you need to shoot a Nikon d40x