Growing oyster mushrooms

During the last BIOSCI 102 lab, we had the students perform an experiment on the growth of oyster mushrooms with recycled grounded coffee. After the semester, there were still a lot of mushroom spawns left. Thus, I took some home, and conducted my own experiment. I cultivated the mushrooms spawns in 3 different substrates - grounded coffee, grounded coffee with pumice, and grounded coffee with dried grass. The result is that mushrooms in the grounded coffee mixed with pumice substrate grew the fastest, followed closely by the mushrooms growing in the grounded coffee mixed with dried grass substrate. Mushrooms in the grounded coffee substrates only started to grow pin-heads after 3 weeks. Besides helping with the syllabus (this is a new lab in BIOSCI 102... never conducted before!), the good thing is also we now have mushrooms for dinner! Yay for Science.

(left) grounded coffee only (middle) grounded coffee with pumice
(right) grounded coffee with dried grass

Adult oyster mushrooms ready to be picked
in a couple of days!

Pin-heads

Adult oyster mushrooms

Orchids are blooming

After 2 years of caring for the orchids, they are finally blooming. Since I got the orchids two years ago, I have been carefully adding nutrients to help them grow, separating the buds, bringing them out in the sun, bringing them in the house to "escape" the cold winter etc.... Finally, this spring see the blooming of the two orchid plants. I don't remember their species names, but one of the them have huge, yellowish-green color flowers. The other I can only see the buds, so still waiting :)

Oh, the grapevine has started fruiting as well.

First sign of spring

Today was a nice representation of spring. There was sunshine with occasional rain... morning and evenings were cooling, but not cold, and it felt nice when you are out in the sun.Hoping for better days ahead.

Well, we finally narrow it down to a faulty drain pump in our washing machine. For a while, we have been thinking that it may be a faulty electronic console, until Hannah's dad pointed out to us that we should take a closer look at the pump. We dismantled it the other day, and found a coin stuck in the discharge pipe. The stuck coin might have caused the pump to work harder, and thus causing it to overheat! For the next few days, we will be sourcing out new or used pumps and see if that will fix the problem. We may just add another DIY achievements to our accomplishments in NZ :)

Goal for coming week - bring my running gear to school so that I can go running while taking a break from writing/ work.

Glimpse of spring

It has been a while since I post  here. My day usually starts with squeezing in an hour in the morning reading and replying emails, do a quick check on facebook :P, and then start working in the lab. After that, a quick lunch and start writing the proposal or papers until rushing to the ferry to get home at about 5pm. At home, the whole writing starts again after dinner and a quick break. Weekdays, weekends.... everyday seems to blend together into one LONG day! It has been busy.

Managed to caught a quick glimpse of spring the other day when I was working at home.

It has been raining all these time... pretty rainbow after the rain

The daffodil is blooming

The pomegranate is budding

Even the long awaited orchid flowers are budding this year!