Exploring the world of gourmet mushroom farmers.
Chciken Tagine
Like many people, I ate canned mushrooms as I grew up, most often in spaghetti sauce or as a pizza topping. I thought they were spongy and tasteless.
Fast forward a decade. While I was visiting my friend Emily in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, we took a stroll through the woods and came upon a fluffy, pillowy, creamy growth of oyster mushrooms emanating from a log. Emily knew for certain what they were, so we took them back to her kitchen, fried them with garlic and butter, and ate them for dinner. The earthy mushroom flavors and chewy, meaty texture were revelatory. Plus, I sensed there was something life-giving about these foraged fungi. It’s hard to explain, but if you talk to mushroom aficionados, most agree that eating fresh mushrooms makes you feel healthy somehow.
Indeed, mushrooms are superfoods, full of protein, vitamins, and minerals. For example, a cup of sliced portabella contains more potassium than a banana. Mushrooms are also an important food for vegans, because they are the only non-animal dietary source of vitamin D. In addition, they’re a great source of antioxidants, which help the body eliminate free radicals. Studies show eating mushrooms can help reduce the risk of serious health conditions, such as Alzheimer’s, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
But what are mushrooms? For many years they were classified as vegetables, but mushrooms are more like humans than plants. They don’t photosynthesize as flora do; instead, they breathe. Mushrooms are actually a member of the kingdom Fungi, a taxonomic group of organisms that have their own unique physiological characteristics.
Chinese medicine has incorporated mushrooms into tonics and teas for thousands of years, and archaeologists have found proof that the ancient peoples of Egypt, Greece, and South America consumed mushrooms. Here in Virginia, mushroom foraging has a long history. Native Americans ate them and likely shared their knowledge concerning which mushrooms were edible with early settlers.
Golden Oyster Mushroom (by Fred + Elliott)
Today, foragers fan out in all seasons seeking Mother Nature’s bounty, but fall is the best time to find wild edible mushrooms. As you probably know, some species can be deadly, so make sure you go foraging with an experienced mushroom hunter or a local mushroom club.
You don’t have to go out into the woods to find exotic mushrooms, however. Today, mushroom farms are popping up all over the state. You’ll find their tasty fungi at farmers’ markets, health food stores, and local restaurants. Once you try gourmet mushrooms, you’ll find yourself craving them—along with that healthy glow you feel after eating them.
If you become a fan, you may even want to try growing some yourself. Many mushroom growers offer growing kits and workshops designed to take you through the process step-by-step. It’s easy. I grew gorgeous oyster mushrooms in my pantry and made an amazing mushroom ragout with umami flavors you wouldn’t believe. Ryan Staab, the owner of Capstone Mushrooms, says growing mushrooms is a new experience. “It’s fun to find something new that engages your brain,” he says. And tastes good, too!
Mark Jones
SHARONDALE FARM, Cismont
Mark Jones, mushroom spawn (by Fred + Elliott)
Depending on the season, a walk through the woods at Sharondale Mushroom Farm in Cismont might look pretty ordinary. In winter, bare tree branches reach to the sky, scattered logs lie haphazardly among layers of fallen leaves, and there’s nary a mushroom to be found.
But even in this quiet landscape, mycelia are busy doing their magic. And when warmer weather comes to this small plot of land just east of Charlottesville, mushrooms explode everywhere, says owner Mark Jones, who has operated Sharondale Farm since 2004.
Sporting a “Got Fungi?” t-shirt, Jones showed me around his mushroom operation. “I designed this place from the ground up,” he says as we walk through the barn-like structures he built. Inside one building are a lab and a mixing room. A smoky, yeasty aroma wafts through the air, and Jones explains that he’s sterilizing the substrate, or growing medium—a mixture of sawdust and organic wheat bran—by cooking it for an extended period.
We strolled to another building, where climate-controlled rooms house large plastic bags from which all sizes and shapes of mushrooms erupt. Some bags look as if they are filled with plain dirt, while others are snow-white inside. Jones explains that as the mycelia process the nutrients in the bag, they reproduce, eventually reaching the stage where they fruit—which is what mushrooms really are.
Blue oyster mushroom (by Fred + Elliott)
And these are not those cute little button mushrooms you buy at the store. These exotic fungi fan out in clumps (oyster mushrooms), billow like amorphous shaggy blobs (lion’s mane), and rise on spindly white legs with freckled brown caps on top (chestnut). I half expect to see an elf to peek out from behind one of the shelves.
But growing mushrooms is only one aspect of Sharondale’s operation. “I’m more interested in the edge of the science,” says Jones, who holds a master’s degree in plant health and serves on the board of the Virginia Association for Biological Farming. He’s passionate about agro-ecological farming, which embraces integrated and holistic practices. “We’re developing processes, programming, and policy for small- to midsize-ecological farms.” That includes helping other farmers diversify their income stream by growing culinary mushrooms. He sells fruiting bags, mushroom spawn, lab supplies, inoculating tools, and more to encourage farmers to add mushrooms to their product line.
Jones sells his mushrooms throughout the region at farmers’ markets, restaurants, Whole Foods, and Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market in Richmond. You can also call ahead and pick up a pound or two at the farm. Grow kits, as well as workshops, are also available for DIYers.
Jones says he’s seen a burgeoning interest in gardening during the pandemic. “People want to take control of their food,” he says. “They understand that mushrooms are healthy, nutritious, and delicious.”
His advice for anyone who wants to try growing mushrooms is to start small. “Be open to learning from the mushrooms,” he says. “What we don’t know, we have to learn by doing.” SharondaleFarm.com
Ryan Staab
CAPSTONE MUSHROOMS, Virginia Beach
When Ryan Staab was a teen, he lived on his grandparents’ 100-plus acre farm in Pennsylvania and discovered wild mushrooms. “I did a lot of exploring,” he says. His uncle accompanied him on foraging walks and taught Staab which mushrooms were good to eat. He particularly remembers harvesting a hen o’ the woods. “It was really big—over 10 pounds—and fed a lot of people,” Staab recalls.
His mushroom journey continued when he hiked the Appalachian Trail. “I found a lion’s mane and cooked it over a campfire,” he says. “I knew nothing about [its] medicinal benefits, but I could feel the difference. I felt smarter that week.”
Those experiences kindled a passion in Staab, who launched Capstone Mushrooms in Virginia Beach last year. His original business plan focused on selling to restaurants, but when they shuttered due to the pandemic, he pivoted to farmers’ markets. They provided an ideal platform for getting his mushrooms into people’s kitchens, but doing five a week interfered with time he could spend cultivating. In addition, as the father of a young son, Staab says finding a work-life balance has been difficult.
But he believes in the gospel of mushrooms. “I want other people to know about the benefits of mushrooms,” he says. Staab envisions growing his business into a community hub for healthy-minded consumers seeking a better way of life. “I want to make a positive impact, to inspire people, to share the joy of nature,” he says. Staab plans to offer mushroom-growing workshops for adults and children and to create a line of supplements. “The sky’s the limit.”
King’s trumpets (by Fred + Elliott)
For now, Staab’s “urban farm” is a small warehouse in an industrial park. He showed me how climate-controlled tents provide optimal growing conditions for different varieties: king trumpet; blue, pink, gold, and Italian oysters; chestnut; shiitake; lion’s mane; and pioppino.
Another popular mushroom Staab grows is reishi, which is drunk in a tea and is purported to build one’s immune system. “Reishi has the longest recorded history and has been attributed to longevity,” Ryan explains. “It used to be reserved for nobility.”
“My philosophy is to make [mushrooms] affordable for everybody,” he continues. “When people are healthier, they’re happier. When they’re happier, they’re nicer to each other.” CapstoneMushrooms.com
Mushroom Fun Facts:
- The study of mushrooms is called mycology, which stems from the Greek word for mushrooms, mykes.
- Mushrooms have been used as food, medicine, poison, and in spiritual practices throughout the world since at least 5,000 B.C.
- A fungal colony known as the “Humongous Fungus,” discovered growing underground in a forest in Oregon, is said to be the largest living organism, covering 3.5 square miles, weighing as much as 35,000 tons, and estimated to be between 2,000 and 8,000 years old.
- Fairy rings are large circles of mushrooms which grow from a centralized mycelial mass. One of the largest ever discovered was found in France and measured 2,000 feet in diameter.
Chestnut mushrooms (by Fred + Elliott)
- Kennett Square, a borough in Pennsylvania, is known as the mushroom capital of the world and produces more than 500 million pounds of mushrooms a year— about half of the total U.S. production.
- In 1929, the British doctor Alexander Fleming isolated the world’s first antibiotic, penicillin, from the blue mold used to make blue cheeses. Other fungal-based pharmaceuticals include statins and medicines that relieve migraines and reduce blood pressure.
- Mycologists estimate there are as many as 3.8 million species of mushrooms. Approximately 144,000 have been identified.
- Recently scientists have discovered fungi can be useful for helping to remove toxins from damaged environments and contaminated water. The practice is called mycoremediation.
- While a student at MIT, Jae Rhim Lee invented the Infinity Burial Suit. Infused with mushroom spores, the suit is meant to sprout mushrooms that will assist with decomposition while, at the same time, decontaminating heavy metals found in your body.
- Some species of mushrooms glow in the dark
Paul and Kaite Schofield
SCHOFIELD FARM, Dinwiddie
Katie Schofield (by Fred + Elliott)
When Paul and Katie Schofield first experimented with growing mushrooms, they produced 10 pounds in buckets in a spare bedroom of their home. “We thought we were big shots,” says Katie with a grin. Today the couple owns Schofield Farm in Dinwiddie County, and business is exploding. “We can’t grow enough to meet the demand,” says Katie.
It all started when Paul was a student at VCU and assisted his professor, who was studying the anti-cancer properties of mushrooms. Paul learned how to grow them, and the more he thought about it, the more he realized mushroom growing was a business that fit in perfectly with his ideals. He’d already decided to live simply on the land, so after he and Katie met and married, they moved to their small homestead in the woods just off Route 460 and started planning their mushroom farm.
Two friendly Great Pyrenees greeted me at the fence one afternoon as I arrived to learn more about Schofield Mushrooms. During a tour of their property with Paul and Katie, I met the rest of the family: Asher, 4; June, 2; four sheep, and a dozen chickens. Then I meet the mushrooms.
In two converted containers, cylindrical bags of substrate lie neatly stacked on their sides—“like honeycombs,” Paul says—with blue and gray oyster mushrooms protruding from the ends. “This is the Chinese method of growing mushrooms,” explains Paul, who showed me how the small bags are inoculated with mycelia through the center. “When you cut the plastic off the end, the mushrooms grow in that direction.”
Shiitake log (by Fred + Elliott)
Down the hill, beautiful speckled shiitake mushrooms erupt from sawdust logs in a greenhouse. Paul explains that recently he and Katie made the decision to rely more on blocks and logs supplied from a grower in New Jersey. “They come on a truck ready to fruit,” he says. The couple continues to make their own blocks and logs and inoculate them, but consistency can be problematic.
Like Ryan Staab and Mark Jones, the Schofields encourage small farmers to add mushrooms to their farm-grown products and are selling blocks and logs at wholesale. “We’ve been growing our wholesale business for only two months,” says Katie, “but we see that as a big part of our future.”
The couple both have other jobs but look forward to the day they can focus on their mushroom farm full-time. Meanwhile, they share the tasks involved in running the farm—delivery, marketing, invoicing, inoculating, cleaning, and harvesting, to name a few. It’s even more challenging with two young children to care for.
“I have a great partner,” says Katie. “Paul works so hard. We’re crushing it now, so we don’t have to crush it so hard later.”
Katie admits to not being a mushroom fan as a child. “My mom served them from a can,” she says. “Then we grew our own. I tasted them and said, ‘Sold!’ We put them in gravy and I said, ‘Extra sold!’ Now I’m chef-ing it up in the kitchen!” SchofieldFarm.Weebly.com
Steve and Elizabeth Haas
HAASHROOM, Goochland
Steve and Elizabeth Haas (by Fred + Elliott)
Steve Haas, who owns HaaShrooms with his wife, Elizabeth, has worn many hats throughout his life. He’s been a retailer, bar owner massage therapist, wild plant and mushroom expert, and mushroom hunter and grower. These days he’s all about the mushrooms.
The couple recently purchased a 65-acre farm in Goochland, and it buzzes with activity. In addition to grow houses and a new greenhouse where the couple grows shiitake, lion’s mane, and other culinary and medicinal mushrooms, they also have a sterilized kitchen where they create a product line ranging from skincare creams and lotions to mushroom-infused coffees, teas, and chocolates. One of their newest products is a soap made from chaga mushrooms, which has been shown to improve skin conditions such as acne and eczema, and also reduce sun damage.
HaaShrooms’ products (by Fred + Elliott)
“Mushrooms heal you inside and out,” says Steve, who has been foraging since he was a kid. “My first memory was with my grandfather on a white horse looking for morels in Amherst. In school, when all my friends were thinking about parties, I wanted to get people to go mushroom hunting up in the mountains. People thought it was the geekiest thing in the world. Now they’re paying me $200 to go mushroom hunting.”
Lion’s mane (by Fred + Elliott)
Steve leads mushroom hunts twice a month and attracts foragers from around the world. “Russians, Polish, Romanians, Croatians—it’s huge in Europe right now,” he says. “And it’s taken off in the U.S. in the last 10 years.” The biggest mushroom Steve ever found was a 65-pound lion’s mane at Tuckahoe Plantation. “I sold it for $940.” He did a tissue culture from that mammoth fungi, and today the lion’s mane mushrooms he grows are its descendants.
Besides selling their mushrooms and products at a variety of farmers’ markets in Central Virginia, Steve and Elizabeth have big plans for their farm’s future. They’re setting up the infrastructure to offer yoga retreats and holistic workshops led by local healers, along with campsites for attendees. Steve shows me the site of what will be known as The Turtle’s Creek Healing Center. It’s deep in the woods at the bottom of a sloping hill, where a cascading creek spills over ancient granite covered with bright green moss. The land was once home to the Monacan tribe of Native Americans, and Steve believes the site was a place of healing for them. “Native American culture is a big part of my life,” says Steve, who inherited Native American blood from his mother’s side of the family. He’s found “tons” of relics on his land. “This property was meant to be,” he says. “It keeps revealing itself.”
Steve and Elizabeth also plan to partner with local chefs to offer alfresco dinners in the middle of a clearing in the woods. You can be sure mushrooms will be the star ingredient on the menu. “You can’t find a food that’s more local than mushrooms,” says Steve. HaaShrooms.com
This article originally appeared in the June 2021 issue.
