Does the block produce mushrooms steadily and continuously?
For oyster and lions mane, the mushrooms are produced now and then over a period of a few months. For shiitake the block produces ‘fruitings’ or ‘flushes’ as they are known, at regular intervals and which are initiated by your ‘shocking’ the block. After a fruiting a block is left to rest for 4-6 weeks during which time the mushroom mycelium continue to digest the cellulose building up mushroom ‘pressure’ or ‘potential’ as we like to think of it. This ‘pressure’ is released by soaking the block in cold water for a day or two with new mushrooms appearing pretty much all at once around a week later. You should be able to get around 4-6 fruitings from each block, but the quantity does decrease over time as the amount of cellulose / food for the fungi decreases. It will up to you decide for how long you continue, weighing up the amount of time involved with the amount of mushrooms produced at each fruiting. Eventually, after perhaps 6-9 months of regular fruitings, you may feel that it is
