Skills for Low Tech Mushroom Cultivation

November 22 – 24th 2019 

@ Quail Springs Permaculture Farm, near Ojai, CA

This course will introduce the art and science of mushroom cultivation by offering low-tech, home-scale methods for growing mushrooms for food, medicine and earth renewal. We will focus on less-sterile approaches to creating your own mushroom cultures (“spawn”), fruiting mushrooms for food and medicine, and working with fungi to build soil, boost your garden, and address soil and water contamination.

Throughout this mushroom cultivation course, you will learn about setting up cultivation space at home, gathering materials and equipment, and gain experiential hands-on skills to make liquid cultures, petri cultures, grain spawn, sawdust kits, and more. You will learn simple ways to grow and make mushroom medicine, grow mushrooms in your garden, digest household waste with fungi, and work with fungi for remediation. The course will involve a mix of lecture-style learning and a lot of hands-on indoor and outdoor skill building.

Please join us for the whole weekend. Saturday is a focus on growing mushrooms at home for food and medicine, Sunday is about starting and growing your own mushroom cultures.

Course fee: $350-500 sliding scale

Includes: Instruction, materials, catered farm-to-table meals, camping & facilities

Each participant will take away their own mushroom cultures (1 liquid culture, 1 Oyster or King Stropharia mushroom grow kit + 1 grain spawn jar) and a Mushroom Cultivation Manual to refer back to. Valued at $75-100.