Oyster Mushrooms

Glenn Coville is an avid mushroom enthusiast and has been for years. A few years ago, after collecting samples from the wild, he began his own mushroom growing operation. At the Wild Branch Valley Farm, behind the produce stand, they have this huge building that they call “the lab.” In the lab, Glenn takes tissue cultures from wild mushrooms and grows them in Petri dishes. Then, they pack them with barley into these airtight plastic bags. Glenn prefers cultivating on barley because it, unlike other, more expensive grains, still has the hull on it. The hull provides extra space; nooks and crannies, if you will for the fungus to grow. At this point, the mushroom startups are called mycelium. Once the mycelium is ready, then you pack it with straw into these huge plastic grow bags. That is where we come in.


In the greenhouse, the Covilles heat straw in this giant, homemade pasteurizer. Heated by a wood stove, the boiler sends steam into the metal bin that holds about five bales of hay. It heats the hay up to a safe temperature of about 180 degrees. With a pitchfork, Glenn throws the hay out onto a work table and it is our job to cool it. Standing around this table full of steaming hay, we grab handfuls it fluffing it to cool it off. We toss pile after pile of warm straw until the air cools it. It’s such a whimsical task. I’m not sure there is anything to compare it to. But, haha, of course I will try. Imagine making a huge pile of leaves in the fall, jumping into it, and throwing the leaves. It’s like that. Imagine what Scrooge Mcduck would do with paper money, tossing it about in the air…it’s kind of like that. (For those of you who needed a good “Duck Tails” reference in your life…you are so welcome)

Once the hay is properly cooled, we take the bags of mycelium that have formed white blocks, and break up the barley over the hay. We then pair up and pack the stuff into huge plastic bags called grow bags. The hay is a sort of vessel for the mushrooms to grow on. One person stuffs the bags with the straw while the other “slams” the hay down into it, squeezing as much hay and mushrooms in as possible, while also leaving air out. Once the bags are stuffed and tied, holes are punched in the bag. Then they are ready to go into the grow room where, after some time in dim lighting and high humidity, they produce heaps of oyster mushrooms.