Coey, as long as it's a wee little spike you shouldn't have any trouble at all. Just don't knock it off while replanting the phal. I would say the earlier in it's development the better. I would up the watering a bit after you repot. Old bark retains a lot more water than new bark so you may stress the phal if you don't make sure it's getting the same amount of water that it was so happy with before the repotting. And then check it every couple of days until you establish it's new water requirements. Start the repotting by soaking the new bark for at least 30 min and at most 24 hours before you're ready for it. That will insure that it's good and moist. Also, chances are that you won't need a bigger pot so just repot with new bark in the same pot. But it wouldn't hurt to have one size bigger on hand just in case you get in there and it's root bound.

Honestly, I have no real knowledge about mushroom allergies. But, most allergies are triggered by a protein in the allergenic substance - the protein is the allergen. If it were me I would avoid contact with the soil as I would suspect it of possibly containing the protein/allergen. The likelihood is probably low, but there is some level of risk. The food issue is not uptake (I don't know of plants taking in soil bound proteins), but if the offending allergen is soil resident then there is a risk of food contamination from soil contact. The greatest risk would most probably be with root vegetables, then low-growing leafy stuff (lettuce, spinach, etc.), then the higher growing fruiting stuff (peppers, tomatoes). If the produce was well washed I would guess that it wouldn't be a problem, but it's a guess. edit - meant to add. you sure are lucky to have a source of SMS. I used to live about 15 miles from a major mushroom center, and the spent stuff is incredibly good compost. This post was edited by TXEB on Tue, Apr 23, 13 at 19:10

They won't come fully back to life, as in eating them fresh. But for cooking purposes, soak them in warm water to cover, for about 20 minutes. Then add to whatever dish you'll be using them in. If you'll be sauteing them in, say, butter, wring them out well before adding to the pan.

That sounds like a great place, and very nice people, Beachlily. I bet they'd love to hear from you. There's a couple of videos out there (at least) showing some techniques to making risotto. One is by Mario Batali, (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/dining/02mini.html?_r=1) and he's making asparagus risotto. He doesn't actually stir all that much. The other is Tom Colicceo, making roasted tomato risotto. I made that the other night, and it was quite good. In this video he shows his way of telling when the risotto is done. The only change I made to his recipe was to use vegetable broth. I'll put a link to that video below, but I don't know how to do more than one link, so I just included the address for the Batali video above. ) (By the way, I stumbled across that website when I did a search for tomato risotto [I have an abundance of tomatoes right now]. It looks like a pretty cool website, but I haven't had or taken the time to explore it further.) Sally