1
Substrate
It starts as soy hulls and hardwood pellets, soaked and packed into a bag with a filter patch. The patch lets the block breathe and keeps everything else out.
Grown in the dark. Picked this morning.
Chestnut, lion’s mane, oyster and shiitake mushrooms, cultivated in small batches in the Okanagan Valley since 2020.
Six mushrooms. One room.
Everything we grow, we grow a few metres from where we pack it.
Chestnut
Fruiting nowNutty, firm, a little sweet. The one people photograph.
Lion’s mane
Fruiting nowTears like crab, browns like steak.
Pearl oyster
Next weekThe everyday one: thin caps, fast in a hot pan.
Blue oyster
Next weekMeatier than pearl; the blue fades to grey when cooked.
King oyster
RestingOne thick stem; treat it like a scallop.
Shiitake
RestingDeep, smoky, the one you already know, but fresher.
How it’s grown
2
Sterilize
Twenty-four hours in a heated drum. Anything already living in the block, mould or bacteria, does not survive it. The mushroom we want has not been introduced yet.
3
Inoculate
Once the block cools we add spawn: grain already colonised by the mushroom. This is the only moment the bag is open, and it is done quickly.
4
Colonize
Then we wait. For two weeks the block sits in the dark while white threads, the mycelium, spread through every pellet. When the whole block is white, it is ready.
5
Fruit
We cut the bag, drop the temperature, raise the humidity and turn on the lights. Pins appear in a day or two. Three to five days later, they look like this.
6
Harvest
Everything is picked by hand the morning it is ready. It is in a bin, then in a bag, then in your kitchen the same day. Nothing sits in a truck.
7
Again
A block fruits two or three times. When it is done, the spent block goes back into the ground. Then a new bag, and the dark again.
Two weeks, then five days
Day 1
Pins. Barely there. Each is a whole mushroom at one percent size.
Caps open. Gills form underneath.
Ready. Wider than a hand. Picked before lunch.
Then it leaves the room.
Fruiting this week
Updated Thursday, Sep 17
| Variety | Status | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
| Chestnut | Fruiting now | about 6 lb |
| Lion’s mane | Fruiting now | about 4 lb |
| Pearl oyster | Next week | |
| Blue oyster | Next week | |
| King oyster | Resting | |
| Shiitake | Resting |
Pickup in Vernon, delivery Vernon–Kelowna on Thursdays, or find us at the market.
In the valley’s kitchens
“We’ve been putting these on the menu since 2020.”
Chef Jordan Bell, Block One at 50th Parallel Estate Winery
If you run a kitchen, we do standing weekly orders and one delivery day. Tell us what you cook and we will tell you what to expect in a month.
Ask about chef ordersCook them tonight
Chestnut
Leave them whole. Hot pan, butter, don’t touch for eight minutes, then salt. The caps go crisp and the stems stay tender.
Full notesLion’s mane
Slice into thick slabs. Dry pan first, pressed with a spatula, to squeeze out water; then butter. Or tear and treat like crab.
Full notesPearl oyster
Tear along the gills. Use the highest heat you have, a little oil, no crowding, three minutes a side. Salt at the end.
Full notesDo you know the mushroom man?
“I started Okanagan Valley Mushrooms in 2020 with a few bags of substrate and a room I could keep cool. Six years later the room is bigger and the list is longer, but the routine is the same: soak, sterilize, inoculate, wait, pick. The best part is still cutting a cluster the morning someone is going to cook it.”
— The mushroom man
More about the farmThis week’s list is short and it changes.
Ask, and we will tell you what is ready.
Send an order request