Mycophile's Garden

22/08/2024

Lion's mane are usually a very reliable mushroom for us as far as cultivation goes.
But this summer they've had some trouble adjusting to our new space. So I'm very pleased to announce that we will have plenty of lion's mane at every farmer's market this Saturday, Sunday and next week.

17/08/2024

Jeez Louise!
This is what I get for skipping harvesting for a day while Jess and Mac are out of town!

Going to be a late night at the fungus Farm today!

13/08/2024

I am thrilled to return to Speciation Cellars to kick off their Nature Night series this Thursday 8/15. We'll talk about all the cool things mushrooms can do for our health, our planet, and their application in various industrial and scientific uses. Bring any and all fungus related questions you may have as we should have time for extensive Q&A after the presentation.

We will have fresh mushrooms, mushroom jerky, tinctures, mushroom grow kits, and more for sale from 6pm-7pm. And then present from 7pm-9pm.

Our friends from Basalt will be there slinging their delicious grub including a special dish made with our mushrooms!

Food, Friends, Spirits, & Fungi. What more could you ask for?! See you there!

03/08/2024

Big week at our little mushroom farm!

The new fruiting room is working out splendidly and after this evening's harvest will be at over 500 pounds for the week.
Over the next couple of weeks we should see those weekly totals rise above 700 pounds, a new record for us and certainly the most mushrooms we've ever produced during the summer time.

This winter we will work on building out our second fruiting room and doubling our current capacity, which is already basically double what it was at our old farm.

We sincerely appreciate all of your comments and support about the recent article written on our farm as well as our expansion.

When I started this business, 10 long years ago, I was young enough to struggle and live paycheck to paycheck (or more accurately Farmers Market to Farmers Market).
As my 40th birthday looms, in the not so distant future, I look forward to saving money and someday retiring. Or at least hiring people to do the hard work!

Also, we're in the market to pick up new restaurants, stores, and other commercial accounts. Please contact us at [email protected] about wholesale ordering or to receive a copy of our wholesale pricing list.

31/07/2024

29/07/2024

Free Mushroom identification class tomorrow, July 29th, at the Cascade library from 6:30-7:30.

2870 Jacksmith Ave. SE
Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

26/07/2024

At all 8 farmers markets tomorrow with beautiful shiitake and much more.

Find the full list plus retail stores and other locations that carry our mushrooms at Mycophile.org/findus

23/07/2024

It took a lot longer than I would have liked but we got air conditioning installed in our fruiting room about a week ago and the mushrooms are absolutely loving it.

Starting this weekend at farmers markets we will have small amounts of mushrooms we were previously only able to grow in the cooler months of the year. This includes nameko, chestnut, snow oyster, and more lion's mane.

Beyond that all of the mushrooms coming out of the new space are cleaner, denser, and of a better quality and shelf life than what we've previously been able to produce during the summer time.

I'm happy about improving our slim profit margins but I'm more excited about how extremely happy the mushrooms are in the new space!

13/07/2024

I traded mushrooms for most of these items today at the farmers market. Thanks, Green Wagon Farm , Visser Farms

Meanwhile Jess has been trading mushroom growing kits for high quality meats with one of the vendors at her Saturday market. Who grows and sells the mushrooms at another market.

I love being a farmer and being self-employed for so many reasons.

Supporting local, knowing where your food comes from, eating as few synthetic chemicals as possible, barter and trade; these aren't just trendy buzzwords for pretty people with lots of money to make Instagram videos about.

It's a return to a more genuine and meaningful way of life. I'm thankful to know the smiling faces of the people that grow my food and to be a part of a community of entrepreneurs that is largely supportive of one another.
Thankful to shop in a place that gives back to our community.

13/07/2024

It's a beautiful morning, if a bit humid.

Thank you for being part of our favorite day of the week.

Find us at all 8 Saturday farmers markets today!

Fulton Street Market
Grand Haven Farmers Market
Holland Farmers Market
Kalamazoo Farmers Market
Meridian Township Farmers' Market
Muskegon Farmers Market
Rockford MI Farmers Market
St Joseph Farmers market

08/07/2024

Moving a few hundred mushroom blocks into the new farm today.

We're harvesting shiitake's and golden oysters, and trying to figure out the best arrangement for the mushrooms in the new farm.

Unlike industrial mushroom farms that can create separate fruiting rooms and conditions for each variety of mushroom, we grow our mushrooms in the same space.

Which means that we've had to create a fruiting space that has a gradient of humidity and CO2 levels as well as airflow across the room allowing us to position some mushrooms in spaces that prefer less airflow, higher CO2, and higher humidity. While others prefer to be in direct path of our ventilation system.

We will have a second fruiting room here at the new Farm that I plan on building out this fall. We'll be using that room much like our old greenhouse and grow mushrooms seasonally providing only heat in the dead of winter.

While this room will soon have air conditioning allowing us to grow a wider variety of mushrooms than previously possible and to grow most varieties year round.

07/07/2024

We've got a dozen or so mushroom related classes and events lined up for the next few months and I would love to see you at one of them.

07/07/2024

Interested in learning more about mushrooms?

Please join us for one of our upcoming classes on mushroom identification, cultivation, edibility, and science.

Details:
Mycophile.org/events

07/07/2024

We have a bunch of new mushroom classes and events listed on the website.

Like every other project recently, it took me longer than I wanted to but I've got them up.

We have upcoming classes on mushroom cultivation, wild mushroom identification, mushroom edibility, science, and more scheduled at libraries, Garden clubs, Farmers markets, breweries, and at our own Warehouse in Grand Rapids.

I love teaching these classes hope to see you at one of them, they also make excellent gifts for any mushroom enthusiasts in your life.

Details:
Mycophile.org/events

04/07/2024

Crains Grand Rapids wrote an article about our expansion.
Unfortunately there's a paywall and no free articles. But I think it's probably pretty good. I'll read it later.

Grand Rapids-based Mycophile’s Garden is preparing to quadruple production in the next year by adding a new mushroom-growing facility.

29/06/2024

We've been making mushroom jerky for a few years now and I must say, we're getting pretty good at it.

This is our spicy teriyaki and I always look forward to the quality assurance taste tests. We've tweaked the recipe a bit over the years and it is delicious.

Currently we sell our jerky at select farmers markets which allow us to sell foods produced under Michigan's cottage food law.

I look forward to the day that we can have it at every Market, although it may be a couple years before we're even able to produce that much.

In the meantime, I'll keep testing.

29/06/2024

The rain has passed for most of us and the Golden oysters are back for the season!
We will have them today at select markets, expect to find them at your Farmers Market in the coming weeks.

I'm pretty pleased with how nicely these Goldens have come out at our new facility, dense and tightly formed, full of flavor and color!

22/06/2024

My Saturday morning commute is always peaceful.
I love being at this old Warehouse by myself in the morning.

Yesterday we sorted and packed 600 pounds of mushrooms for today's markets, we hope to see you there!
Oyster mushrooms on sale!

Fulton Street Market
Grand Haven Farmers Market
Holland Farmers Market
Kalamazoo Farmers Market
Meridian Township Farmers' Market
Muskegon Farmers Market
Rockford MI Farmers Market
St Joseph Farmers market

21/06/2024

Oyster mushroom sale this weekend at all farmers markets.
Michigan, snow, and black king oyster $6/half pound.

We've got more than we need and would love to share!

Saturday at the following farmers markets:
Fulton Street Market
Grand Haven Farmers Market
Holland Farmers Market
Kalamazoo Farmers Market
Meridian Township Farmers' Market
Muskegon Farmers Market
Rockford MI Farmers Market
St Joseph Farmers Market

Sunday @ East Lansing Farmers Market

17/06/2024

On days like this I'm thankful to have a walk-in cooler at home to stand after I'm done harvesting in our 90% humidity grow room.

Also thankful for it on days when I need to chill a watermelon, there's too many groceries to put in the fridge, I'm pickling 50 lb of cucumbers, and everyday when it saves me a drive to Grand Rapids to put away the day's harvest.

Stay cool!

15/06/2024

What a week!

Things are coming along splendidly at the new farm.
Mushrooms just started growing there about a week ago and by tonight I will have harvested a couple hundred pounds. I picked about 80 "after work" last night.

We're still transitioning out of our old greenhouse, and while I will miss it so, the new space is producing beautiful mushrooms with a much greater yield, greater consistency, cleaner, and with a better texture and shelf life. The increased profitability will really help us because as many mushrooms as we sell sometimes it's still a struggle to fund everything.

Over the next few weeks we'll move about 800 shiitake bags/blocks out of our warehouse in Grand Rapids and disassemble the shelving and take it all home to the new farm. Where we're already storing about 800 blocks of other mushrooms in our home laboratory.

I got the day off from market today because I will be teaching a mushroom cultivation class at Blandford Nature Center starting at 1:00. And I've used my morning to start rearranging our warehouse space in anticipation of building a small commercial kitchen here for production of our mushroom jerky, tinctures, and other processed products. Hopefully we will start construction on that by the end of summer.

There's so much more but I won't bore you with the details. I hope you all enjoy this beautiful weekend and thank you for your support.

12/06/2024

Find us tomorrow at the East Grand Rapids Farmers Market from 8:30-1:00pm @ 750 Lakeside Drive.

12/06/2024

My babies.

11/06/2024

First harvest at the new Farm is about ready.
This is the same growth of mushrooms maturing over the course of 72 hours. They are now ready to harvest. 96 hours ago they were non-existent.

Mushroom growing will keep you on your toes.

One of our recent batches somehow has both Michigan oyster and black king oyster mushrooms growing in the same bags.

Our Michigan oyster is a robust strain that has a habit of overtaking other mushrooms. I've seen this happen a few times now.

07/06/2024

Well it's taken far longer than I anticipated but I'm putting the finishing touches on one of our fruiting rooms at the new location this evening.

Humidity system is up and running, patching up the last few waterproofing aspects and I just need to install lighting and a couple of CO2 and timer controlled exhaust fans. Next week we'll install a 48,000 BTU dual zone mini split heating and cooling system. Requiring up to 10 fresh air exchanges per hour, mushrooms demand a lot of environmental modification to maintain their preferred fruiting environments; while still being far less environmentally impactful than traditionally grown crops and especially other protein sources.

In a few weeks this space will be producing producing 600 lb of mushrooms a week. I introduced our first mushroom bags this evening.

I always think that because I'm self-employed I have all the time in the world to work on "extra" projects, but the reality is our day-to-day tasks take up 60 hours of my week. 60 relatively relaxed and generally awesome hours, I might add.

And yet, somehow my favorite part of my job is working alone at night on those things that will move us forward.

The freedom from mundanity provided by being self employed in a unique field that provides continued opportunities for growth is better than any job I could have ever hoped for.

04/06/2024

This showed up in my Facebook memories.
It's pretty fitting because this week we begin moving our mushroom fruiting blocks to a new and even more spacious location.

We will still have our warehouse in Grand Rapids for packaging and distribution as well as other projects.

But I can't wait to share some pictures and videos of our new mushroom fruiting room in the next week or two here.

Always moving, always expanding, always feeling a little bit behind, but loving nearly every minute of it.

01/06/2024

I'm thankful for a job that provides me with me challenges and many opportunities for personal and professional growth.

01/06/2024

East Lansing Farmers Market starts tomorrow and we're so happy to be back!