Mushrooms and mycelium can be a polarizing topic, many love them, some despise them, a few are scared of them. Whatever your reaction, mycelium is an absolutely essential family in the tree of life from the structure of the soil, the recycling of forest materials, or the yeast rising your bread and fermenting your beer.

The production of edible mushrooms is a fundamental practice here at Farm on the Fen. As an aspect of forest management, inoculating logs (or bolts) of certain tree species will do no harm to the wildlife, soil or the forest as a whole. Rather, we harvest a nutrient-dense and high value crop from a process that is naturally ongoing around us. As mycelium digests lignin and cellulose from the bolt it will bloom flushes of edible mushrooms for about three years. When the log is exhausted, the remaining structure returns to the forest floor as soil and mulch.

Mushroom production offers us a specialty crop that carries amino acids, antioxidants and important trace minerals. The crop also adds resilience to our farm as they are flood, drought, heat and cold tolerant: they simply wait until a better day to bloom without missing a beat.

Right now we are cultivating Lion’s Mane, Oyster, Red Wine Cap and Shiitake mushroom varieties. We also forage wild Bolete, Turkey Tail and Golden, Pearl and Winter Oyster mushrooms from the forest wetlands. These are harvested from Sugar and Silver Maple, Black Walnut, Elm or directly from the soil.