Finding free logs: council pruning, tree surgeons and yesterday's storm

The question "where do I get a log" lands in our inbox more often in January than any other question about plug spawn. The answer is a pleasant one: fresh broadleaf wood is free and everywhere in these months, as long as you notice it when you walk past. These are the six sources we and our customers use, from easy to slightly more effort.

1. Council pruning in your own street

Councils prune and fell between November and March, and the wood goes into chippers or off to the composter. The crews with the saws are usually happy for you to take a few logs, especially if you ask politely and do the carrying yourself. Mind the species: streets are lined with lime, plane and ash, and of those three ash is the best for oyster mushroom. Lime and plane work too, but are less predictable.

2. Tree surgeons and landscapers

A tree surgeon pays to get rid of wood. Ask whether a beech, oak or birch is coming down in the next few weeks, offer to collect the metre lengths yourself, and the answer is almost always yes. Best is a standing arrangement: leave your number and ask for a message when something good comes up. That way you get exactly the wood you want instead of whatever happens to be there.

3. Yesterday's storm

After every winter storm, parks, woods and roadsides are littered with toppled or broken trees. The week after, everything gets cleared, and that is your window. Ask the land manager (council, forestry service, estate) whether you may cut or take pieces; helping yourself to wood from a forest is not allowed and not something we encourage. Storm wood has one drawback: it may have been dead for a while before it fell. Check the cut end: tight and pale is good, discoloured or soft means other tenants have already moved in.

4. Classifieds, neighbourhood apps and the local freecycle

Search for "firewood", "logs" or "tree felled". People who have had a tree removed from their garden regularly offer the wood for free as long as you collect quickly. Always ask when the tree was cut. For inoculation you want wood no more than six weeks old, so "last autumn" only qualifies as firewood.

5. Your own garden and the neighbours'

Every garden tree that gets pruned yields candidates: a thick branch from an apple or cherry, an alder along the ditch, a willow being pollarded. Pollarded willows are a special case: every three to four years they produce a pile of arm-thick branches that are exactly the right size for velvet shank and oyster mushroom. Look around at the neighbours and offer part of the harvest in exchange. It works.

6. Timber merchants and sawmills

If you would rather not hunt, call a local sawmill or timber merchant and ask for fresh, undried broadleaf wood in log form. It costs something, but you choose exactly the species, size and freshness. For anyone wanting shiitake on oak with no oak nearby, this is the sure route.

What do you leave behind?

Conifer wood (always), wood that has been lying for months, wood with loose bark or black streaks on the cut end, and anything treated or painted. Logs that stood right beside a busy road catching exhaust fumes for years are not ideal either, though that is more a matter of preference than danger. And never take wood from a nature reserve without permission: dead wood there has been left deliberately for the fungi already living in it.

And then?

Cut to length, lay the logs in the shade with a tarp loosely over them against drying out, and inoculate within two to six weeks. How many plugs you need per log is in our calculator piece, and why February and March are the best months for it is in this one. Unsure about a log? Send us a photo of the cut end and we will tell you whether it is good.