Grow your own mushrooms with locally produced kits.
Looking for a fun food experiment to try at home? Tahoe Mushroom Co. in South Lake Tahoe offers Grow Your Own Mushroom Kits, which also allows you to experience exciting new mushroom flavors, easily and inexpensively. The kits include a variety of mushrooms native to the Lake Tahoe area that are bursting with flavors and unlike those typically found in the grocery store.
The kits came to fruition through a group of three friends with a passion for mushrooms. Kyle Woodland, who owns Tahoe Mushroom Co., along with Matthew Huntington and his significant other, Marissa Streck, a master gardener specializing in mushroom hunting and cultivation, worked to create the kits and distribute them throughout the Reno-Tahoe area. The kits also are used in workshops to teach locals how to grow mushrooms on their own.
The program currently is a collaborative effort between Tahoe Mushroom Co.; the University of California Cooperative Extension’s Master Gardeners of Lake Tahoe; the Grow Your Own Series, hosted in Tahoe City by the Tahoe Environmental Research Center; and Slow Food Lake Tahoe.
Grow Your Own
The kits make growing your own mushrooms simple and nearly foolproof. Simply cut an X on the designated spot indicated on the kit, and the magic begins. Mist the open area twice daily, and soon the beginnings of mushroom sprouts, called pins, begin to peek out. Just continue misting regularly, and after about 12 days, the pins eventually will appear to double or triple in size almost daily until they form fully grown mushrooms ready to harvest.
However, this is not the end for these useful kits — they actually have the capacity to create two to four full harvests. This can be done by opening the box kit, flipping over the block (the combination of all the items used to colonize the mushrooms properly), and putting the block back into the kit box, then following the same process as before. By continuing to flip the kit, you can cultivate a plentiful crop of mushrooms.
Don’t throw the kit away when it stops producing, though, because it keeps on giving. Add it to a vegetable garden, and it helps retain moisture and nutrients and actually starts more mushrooms that will grow around your other vegetables.
Kit and Caboodle
Though the kits may be quick and easy to use, making them is no simple task. Each five-pound kit is produced through a multi-step process completed by Woodland before being packaged and ready to sell, in a process that involves sterilization of mushroom pieces, petri dishes, and mixtures of mushrooms with wheat and honey. Two weeks go by before the block is finally ready to be put into the grow kit boxes and sold wholesale for $15 and up to $30 by vendors.
Choose from several native mushroom varieties, including blue, pink, yellow, and pearl oyster; lion’s mane; and chestnut.
The operators and organizers of the Grow Your Own Mushrooms workshop are considering expanding the mushroom presentation from being delivered solely over Zoom, which they began doing during the pandemic. They hope to add in-person presentations at the Tahoe Environmental Research Center in Incline Village, as well as work in schools in the coming year to teach students about the importance of fungi in the environment.
Interested in trying your hand at mushroom farming? Pick up a kit at Advanced Garden Supply, Grass Roots Natural Foods, Botanical Arts Co., the Ski Run Farmer’s Market on Fridays, or the Meyers Mountain Market on Wednesdays, all located in South Lake Tahoe. For details about the kit, visit Tahoemushroomcompany on Instagram or Tahoe Mushroom Company on Facebook. For mushroom workshop details, including signups, visit Slowfoodlaketahoe.org.
Alina Croft has a degree in journalism from the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno and is currently working on her master’s degree at UNR in media innovation. Croft has been pushed to try different mushrooms since being exposed to this mushroom growing program.
