Talking Mushrooms with Brent Cox from Frosty Hollow Mushrooms

Recently my husband, Peter, took a grow-your-own-culinary-mushroom course with Brent Cox from Frosty Hollow Mushrooms. Since then, he has been slightly obsessed with growing mushrooms. We now have a patch of gourmet mushrooms growing in our forest. I love it! It is such a joy to watch the mushrooms grow from little nuggets to giant oysters.

Peter bought a bunch of mushroom compost from Lake Country Mushrooms and placed it in a shady spot in the forest and covered it up with hay. After the occasional watering we soon had the patch producing large, luscious patches of oyster mushrooms in varying colours. 

We are now eating mushrooms almost daily and we both cook and dry the mushrooms to preserve them for later. Countertops filled with mushrooms has become a common occurrence and the kids have been studying mushrooms as part of their homeschooling.

golden oyster mushrooms top

elm oyster mushrooms below

Brent talks about how mushrooms have the potential to grow abundantly in small places and that they can be a substitute for meat in a world where pressure on resources is higher. They can produce a large amount of food and contain beneficial minerals and vitamins. They also have that delicious umami flavour. 

Right now, Brent grows a variety of oyster mushrooms as well as chestnut mushrooms. He sells the mushrooms and the grow-your-own kits at various farmers' markets (Armstrong, Salmon Arm and Kamloops). Frosty Hollow Mushrooms also sell their mushrooms to various grocery stores in Salmon Arm. Brent remarks that it used to be harder to find gourmet mushrooms that were grown locally. Most of those mushrooms were imported from Asian markets before but now there are more and more small-scale, local farms growing a diverse range of mushrooms. 

oyster mushrooms growing on prepared grow your own kit- made from grain inoculated with mycelium

Brent is happy to share what he has learnt and is himself constantly seeking to learn more about this fascinating topic. There is so much more to learn about mushrooms, their importance in the ecosystem and how they can benefit humans. Brent plans to teach more courses on mushrooms this fall through the Armstrong Rec Centre. I’ll be sure to check out his courses. 

He also grows medicinal mushrooms such as red Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum or Ganoderma lingzhi) and Lion's mane (Hericium erinaceus). Brent explains that the Reishi contains many B-vitamins and can help with heart and cardiovascular health. The Lion's Mane is helpful for brain and cognitive health and it can relieve anxiety and depression. In the future Brent also wants to grow turkey tail (Trametes versicolor) and cordyceps for their medicinal properties. 

AIAO students- the Mycelium Mates

Not only are mushrooms beneficial as food and medicine, but they also provide a great service in the form of cleaning the environment and sharing nutrients with plants through their mycelium.

Recently I had a chance to speak with some students from Fulton's AIAO program in Vernon. They have been working hard over the last year to learn everything they can about mushrooms. Chatting with Aidan Spicer, Anna MacDuff, Jacob Adkins and Kayden Shaver is like talking with an encyclopedia in mushroom knowledge. They tell me intriguing facts about each fungus they have studied, and they comfortably name them by their common and Latin name. Their passion and interest are apparent. For their Care (Climate Action Ripple Effect) project they decided to focus on how mushrooms break down plastics. The students finish each other’s sentences as they explain the science behind how the mushrooms use enzymes to break down and externally ingest the plastic. You can tell that they have become used to sharing their knowledge and that they work well together presenting it. They have presented their findings at Okanagan Landing Elementary School, on Beach Radio, for the Vernon Naturalist club and they have another speaking engagement coming up at the Vernon Library.

 

They would like to take the project further and do a pilot study to see how mushrooms could work at the landfill. For example, mushrooms in the Pestalotiopsis genus work well in anaerobic environments such as landfills where dry, and oxygen poor conditions make it hard for things to break down. The students are now pondering which native species of mushroom might be suitable for a project like this and how to go about finding spores for it.

 

It is so exciting to think about all the ways that mushrooms can contribute to our lives. 

Both Brent and the AIAO students tell me that mushrooms can be used to make building material that are lightweight and completely sustainable. It blows my mind when I see structures made from mycelium bricks. Some of this knowledge have been known to mankind for a long time, it was already practised by the Incans. Here is a link to an article I found interesting by Environmental Planner and Housing Researcher, Maria Saxton: 

https://www.buildwithrise.com/stories/mycelium-fungi-as-a-building-material#:~:text=Mycelium%20is%20100%25%20organic%2C%20compostable,been%20used%20for%20packaging%20purposes.

 

 

Thank you for visiting my blog. I look forward to connecting with you in the future again.

With Kindness,

Mikaela