Ready to embark on a captivating journey into the world of mushroom cultivation and their medicinal properties? We've got you covered! Join us as we welcome the dynamic owners of Gaelic Fungi Farm, Michael and Eilís, who reveal the intricate process of growing medicinal mushrooms like Lion's Mane and Turkey Tail. Discover how these healthy fungi are gaining popularity and the beautiful culture behind starting a mushroom farm.
Imagine balancing a unique lifestyle with the hands-on process of cultivating fungi. Michael and Eilish open up about how they juggle their world of mushroom cultivation with family life. Prepare to be amazed as we delve into the profound effects of Reishi and Lion's Mane mushrooms on mental clarity and their potential in reducing the severity of diseases like Alzheimer's and dementia. We also touch on the importance of including certain herbs in the diet and their contribution to overall health and wellness.
Finally we explore the fascinating world of Gaelic Fungi Farm's indoor kitchen countertop grow kits. Michael and Eilís walk us through the ideal climate for mushrooms, the various substrates used, and the intriguing use of rock dust to enhance flavor and health benefits. They also highlight the critical aspects of quality and environmental protection when purchasing mushroom products.
It's a fascinating chat with Eilís & Michael and its great to hear the passion they have for their product and growing in general.
You can find Gaelic Fungi farm and their amazing products here
https://www.gaelicfungifarms.ie
There will be a blog post on this episode very soon on my website. This blog and previous blogs along with all podcast episodes are available on my
Website :https://mastermygarden.com/
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Until next week
Happy gardening
John
If there is any topic you would like covered in future episodes, please let me know.
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Until next week
Happy gardening
John
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
How's it going everybody?
Welcome to episode 192, masterMacGarden Podcasts.
Now, a couple of weeks ago Imentioned that over these next
few weeks we might be going offtopic a little bit, and this
(00:21):
week's episode I'm delighted tobe joined by Michael and Eilish
from Gaelic Fungi Farm, and thisis an interesting topic.
As I say, strictly speaking,it's gardening vaguely gardening
, I guess but fungi, mushrooms,mycelium, they're all very much
related to growing and I supposewe talk a huge amount on the
(00:44):
podcast about vegetable growingthrough the months and we've
just had the episode a couple ofweeks ago where we're talking
about what to grow in Septemberand that list is getting
substantially smaller.
So I think there is anopportunity here to maybe branch
out a little bit and try orhave a go at growing our own
mushrooms at home, and the guyssell a homegrown kit, so we're
(01:05):
going to talk about that.
But also they sell some unusualmushrooms well, not unusual but
highly acclaimed mushrooms likeLyons Main and that's widely
claimed to have huge medicinalbenefits.
Turkey Tail as well, and Isuppose in my house I'm a bit of
a fungi fan.
I've watched fantastic fungi onNetflix about five times at
(01:30):
this stage and I always find itinteresting.
So I think it's going to be aninteresting topic.
As I say, a little bit offtopic for our typical garden
stuff, but, guys, you're very,very welcome to join our garden
podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Thank you so much, John.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Thank you, John.
Thank you for inviting us.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, you're very welcome.
So I suppose I only recentlycame across to you guys.
You're not that far from me, soI'm on the east side of Kerala
town and I think you guys arelike on the Wexford side of
Kerala town.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, we're just outside the town in Balan.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Brilliant.
Yeah, so it's great to seebusinesses like this and
obviously, as I say, I've read alot about Lyons Main and the
benefits of that and then to seesomebody producing the
mushrooms themselves and dropsand I think powders or tablets
so close to home is quite good.
So maybe tell us a little bitabout your story first and how
(02:25):
this came to be.
I know it's quite a relativelynew business, but tell us all
about it.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
So we got started initially as a I suppose as a
hobby at first, just to see ifwe can get our hands accustomed
to the intricacies of growingmushrooms.
I'm from California originally.
That's where Eilish and I hadmet first, so we, like anybody
(02:53):
else really, we got intomushrooms kind of just randomly.
We all grew up accustomed toeither your basic like
portobello and button mushrooms,cremini mushrooms, but then,
thankfully for us, being that wewere living in the Bay Area in
California, around the SanFrancisco Bay Area, you run into
(03:16):
a beautiful eclectic mix ofpeople and cultures and everyone
has so many different ways ofpreparing particular dishes, and
a lot of those dishes at thetime for us were really aimed
towards more plant based.
So because of that, we werelooking for great alternatives
for protein and one of thebiggest ones that we were always
(03:41):
led to was usually gourmetexotic mushrooms.
You know, at least in regardsto the stuff that we were mostly
accustomed to.
So for that we would go intohigher end grocery stores in
order to find them and luckilyenough they'd be there because
there was a demand for them.
(04:02):
There's a, as I'm sure, in anyother city or any other location
that you find, you'll find anice, strong hub of people that
are real conscious and realforward as to the types of
produce that's available to themand what they'll ask the
grocery store to order for them.
So in this instance, we wereable to find everything from
(04:24):
lion's mane to oyster mushrooms,shiitake and what's another one
chanterelles, and then they'dalso find some seasonal things
too that were, I'm sure, wereprobably foraged.
So that's really what got usstarted with it, but, as with
anything, especially this dayand age, it started getting
(04:47):
really expensive.
You know that produce.
It was wonderful to come across, but it was something that we
required pretty much daily, andbecause of that, it started to
burn a hole through our walletsand we found loads of
information on the internet andwe started buying more books in
(05:09):
regards to mushrooms, a lot ofthem from your man, paul Stamets
, one of the producers andcreators of the Fantastic Fun
guy that you mentioned earlier,and in these books they outlined
the procedure in which how tostart a mushroom farm, whether
it be in a small scale to a muchcommercial scale.
(05:31):
And, reading this honestly, allthe ingredients that we needed
were right at our local hardwarestore.
So we just started the journeythere.
We just started slowly, everyweek, with every paycheck, we
would go in and go acquire allthe different pieces that these
books recommended, these YouTubevideos recommended.
(05:54):
And then the most difficultthing that we found not
difficult in hindsight, but atthat time the most difficult
thing for us to source wouldhave been the cultures, the
actual mycelium, or the mushroomcultures to create the mycelium
.
But the beautiful thing aboutfungi and about mycology and
(06:15):
then anything that involvesmushrooms is there's a beautiful
community and culture revolvingaround it where a lot of these
folks which I'm sure it's thesame, when you get into heirloom
farming, you get intoregenerative farming, no-till
farming and anything that has todo with farming.
That's really you kind of findand gravitate towards your tribe
(06:38):
and within that tribeeveryone's going to have their
little bits here and there onhow to source particular
ingredients, particularmaterials.
So that's basically how wefound them and from there we
just started growing them inplastic containers in our
wardrobe, and this is still inCalifornia.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
You're not in Ireland at this stage.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, this is in California and also we were
really into growing our ownherbs and medicinal side of
things.
So that was obviously a mainattraction of the medicinal
mushrooms and so, yeah, it wasjust as a hobby, just for
ourselves, we would share withfriends.
The demand was growing quitebig.
(07:17):
Once everybody knew that wewere growing it, they wanted to
get some off us.
You could grow a lot in yourwardrobe.
Surprise, yeah.
But yeah, where the ideassparked to potentially start a
farm in Ireland was my dad hadgotten some surgery and he had a
reaction to the anesthesia.
(07:38):
I was trying to get some linesmade because his memory was just
really atrocious for a fewweeks and quite frightening.
So I was messaging farmers ortrying to find somebody online
and I got absolutely zeroresponse.
So I was like, wow, there's noaccess to this in Ireland and
obviously with the hugemedicinal potential of them, a
(08:01):
lot of people need it.
Yeah, so that was the firstlittle seed drop.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
And when was that?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Um gosh, like maybe 2017, 18.
Okay, and then we had our sonin 2019.
And then so he was about sixmonths old when COVID hit and
the whole city shut down and theworld went mad.
We decided we should leave thecity and move to Ireland for so
(08:32):
many reasons, but, yeah, thatwas our chance to take it to the
next level.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yeah, it's funny you say that because, um, lyons me
and I've been, I've been readinga bit about it for a long time.
I've never actually startedtaking it yet, um, but I've been
reading about it and thebenefits and potential benefits
and, uh, the reason I asked whenwas that was?
I researched it a couple ofyears ago and you're right,
(08:57):
there was.
You know, there was very fewpeople that you could say, um,
you know very few places youcould get it.
But, funny enough, now, when I,when I look it up, you guys are
coming up, which is good.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Great.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah, that was, um, as I mentioned before, the place
that we would find it in,living in the Bay Area, would
either be at that high endgrocery stores or, on occasion,
if we were to stumble upon afarmer's market, either in the
Berkeley area, um, there you'dfind mushroom stalls and then
(09:33):
there they give you an array ofchoices to pick from, as well as
all the education behind it.
That's where we actually gotthe idea to form a, a direct to
consumer business model whereit's not only just having the
mushrooms available but it'salso educating folks on the, the
(09:53):
, the magic, I guess you can say, of these beautiful mushrooms
as the potential for healing andthe potential for, um, the
holistic way of utilizing theminerals and and and particular
bio available chemicals that arein these mushrooms to benefit
your overall health.
(10:14):
Anything from your mind forLyons main to your heart.
Health with shiitake, youroverall health with my personal
favorites by the name of Rishi.
Okay, yeah, so from there, asEilish was saying, that we
decided, you know, we shouldjust uproot, move across the
world and then see what we cando here in Ireland for ourselves
(10:37):
.
At first and then it was alwaysan idea we wanted to play with,
with upscaling that productionfrom our wardrobe to just see
what potential can go from there.
You know, we're just with thebright idea and sure enough, you
know, we decided to put thework in and we, we got access to
a family farm of her, of heruncles, and and then from there
(11:02):
we just started buying up thepieces, like we did before.
You know, we utilize shippingcontainers and we refurbish them
, and from that we just startedadding little bits here and
there.
We created a laboratory wherewe do all of our mycelia work.
We created a kitchen where wedo all of our clean production,
(11:27):
for the powders, for the liquids, even for preparing the grow
kids.
All those little pieces were sointricate and and unique to the
business model that so, can Isay, the attention to detail, to
where we really wanted to makesure everything was done just
right, before we ever gotstarted in full production.
(11:47):
You know.
So that took a bit of took abit of time, but we finally got
there and now we're finallygetting the ball rolling.
You know, this year, yeah, andso you're.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
You're producing from what I can see from your
website and correct me if I'mwrong you're producing Lionsman,
rashi and Turkey Tail currentlyand you have grow kids and we
talk about those, like theLionsman from medicinal.
From medicinal purposes,lionsman is seen, as you know,
that I suppose one of the topmushrooms that you can grow.
(12:19):
Maybe tell us a little bitabout the potential benefits of
Lionsman Rashi and so on?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
So, yeah, lionsman is definitely most famous for its
cognitive support.
It's a neurogenic mushroom, soit actually creates new neuro
pathways in the brain there's.
It's amazing now likeeverything's become a mainstream
and all this information iseasily accessed by people
Because there's so much studies.
(12:46):
There's a lot of clinicaltrials.
It's Turkey Tail and it'scancer research.
Turkey Tail contains thesepolysaccharides PCP and PSP and
PSK, and they're been isolatedand studied for their cancer
killing potential.
So that's a really popular one.
(13:08):
Honestly, they're all just aspopular.
Rashi is native to Asia andit's known as the mushroom of
immortality, so it's been used.
All of these have been used intraditional Chinese medicine for
thousands of years, so we havethe knowledge of the ancestors
(13:29):
and, as well, modern scientiststo really back up how these work
.
And it's just, it's reallyphenomenal when you give
somebody a Rashi tincture andthey come back a week later
almost in tears because theirblood pressure has come down.
They've been trying to get offpharmaceuticals for so long and
it's just dramatically changedthe life really quickly.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
And I know obviously any claims.
You know you're always you haveto caveat them and all the rest
of it.
But on a personal level, do youtake all these mushrooms and
you know from the time youstarted what difference like
you're obviously very healthylooking people.
You're growing your own herbs,you said which would be
(14:15):
interesting to hear which onesyou were growing as well for
medicinal purposes.
But, specifically to themushrooms.
Have you seen any personalbenefits differences?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Yeah, the most hardcore physical difference I
would notice is that we haven'tgotten sick in a really long
time, like no colds or flus.
We would have been quitehealthy anyway, like just normal
diabetes or anything.
So for us personally, improve,sleep more energized, not
getting sick, which was a bigone for me.
(14:47):
I would often catch colds orwhatever.
Yeah, and I noticed when westarted taking the lines I was
actually making our website atthe time I had no idea how to
make a website, but I really,really noticed good cognitive
function on just getting up andbeing very productive with that,
(15:07):
because I don't normally dooffice works, not what we're
doing where it runs on in themushroom farm.
So that was a key notestandpoint for me as well.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Yeah, for myself, a lot of this work that we do
because we're still small scale,so a lot of it requires
everything to be done by hand,whether it be creating the
substrate that the mushroom andthe mycelium grow from,
everything's just done from thebottom up, so we don't have any
heavy machinery to, I guess, tomake our lives easier just yet.
(15:41):
So because of that, a lot ofwhat I do requires being up even
at the crack of dawn.
Same with Ilys she has to getup early just to go harvest and
then make sure that the growroom is optimal, all the meters
are reading correctly, and thenwe split our shifts by the time
she's done with her end of theshift, usually around the
(16:04):
afternoon.
That's when my shift starts,and it can run all the way until
about half one to two in themorning.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
You're juggling it with your small child.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
that's why yeah, and then just also juggling our own
personal time, time with our son, time with our dog and our cat
all that it's all intertwinedinto the whole lifestyle, as
most farmers would know.
So because of those late hoursI find my mind from going to bed
(16:38):
late to waking up early.
My mind would just be razzled.
Most of the time it's just lackof sleep.
My attention wouldn't be quitethere.
You and I could be talking fora good hour to face to face, and
I'd be agreeing with everythingyou're saying or disagreeing
with it.
You asked me five minutes rightafter that conversation and I
(16:59):
just give you a blank stare asif I have no idea what you're
talking about.
So after we got enoughproduction to where we can have
this as a supplement forourselves daily, then I started
seeing the big positivedifference, and for me it took
all of its anecdotal, of course,and everyone's going to react
(17:20):
to things differently.
So for myself, taking thesemushrooms daily between anywhere
between three to and I saythree to seven weeks, that's
where, myself, I actuallystarted to be conscious enough
of the difference that I wasmaking for myself In terms of my
(17:42):
for Reishi, the reason why Imentioned that one would be my
favorite is because it reacts tomy body.
As far as I noticed the mostpositive in regards to my
anxieties, a lot of my stressthe lion's mane would have been
more functional for me in termsof clearing a lot of that mental
(18:05):
fog that I deal with in themorning.
Long term, I hope that it'll besomething that I can rely on
for minimizing if and when I maybe susceptible to things like
Alzheimer's or dementia, whichyou know, that's one thing that
I study often, just because mygranny had unfortunately
(18:25):
succumbed to that and, from whatI'm reading, they reckon that
it could be hereditary.
They're still trying to do longterm studies to see how you
know whether that is or not.
So because of that, it's stilltoo early to tell whether her
kids, my aunts and my uncles aresusceptible to it and if not,
(18:46):
it could jump onto myself.
So that's something that Iworry about and throughout the
research that we've done forthese mushrooms, we find that
lion's mane can help in thereduction of the severity of
that disease.
It's a daily thing that youreally need to be conscious and
aware of within yourself.
(19:06):
You know it's a question weoften get asked from folks
whether it's something that theycan feel the benefits of right
away, and it's the same asanything else Any other vitamin
that I'd like to mention.
It's just you may or may notfeel an immediate reaction
within the first few days.
It's really something that's.
It's a lifestyle.
You know it's.
(19:26):
You're not going to, you're notgoing to become the most
healthy person overnight by justcompletely changing your
lifestyle and diet in just a 24hour period.
You know it's truly a lifestylechoice and a lifestyle change
that can take weeks, months forsome folks, but where we're at
now for myself at least speakingI can definitely feel a
(19:50):
positive difference when I'musing it and when I'm not using
it.
There's a noticeable differencethere that I could actually
write down on paper and then,you know, explain to people and
that's in relation to the,that's in relation to you know,
feeling a bit stressed or yourmind racing or whatever it's.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
it's that difference.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Yeah, even even to things as simple as your gut
health and the microbiome that'swithin your gut that can affect
things like inflammation,affect things like anxiety and
mild depression or justdigestion.
You know, you could, I cannotice we stay as healthy as
(20:34):
humanly possible.
You know, with our diet.
Choices are the things that wegrow, the things that we consume
from local farmers, organicfarmers.
We do the best that we can, youknow, with what's available,
but at the same time, certainfactors being it that we're
(20:56):
first time business owners,first time large scale farmers,
a lot of it entails somesleepless nights, you know, some
really early morning, someworking out in very torrential
weather, very cold, stormy,lifting, heavy, bending low.
(21:18):
A lot of this stuff that wewere raised around, fortunate
enough, but we didn'tnecessarily grow up doing it
ourselves.
Yeah, yeah, you know so it'sgiving us a whole new respect
and a whole new appreciation forwhere our food comes from.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yeah, for sure, just to go off topic, you mentioned
you grew herbs medicinally.
What herbs were you growingyourself?
As you said, you said you.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, so we have a lot of mugwort.
I have St John's wort, comfreyrosemary thyme, we have mullin.
What else do we have?
Speaker 3 (21:58):
White sage.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yeah, we had like the regular kitchen stuff.
Yeah, but a lot of mugwort andSt John's wort and then I forage
as much as I could as well.
Seabox thorn are just foragedfor the first time.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Very good.
Yeah, you have to go somewhere.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yeah, luckily for us, my mother has a caravan down in
Morris Castle.
Yeah, so there's tons.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah, brilliant, yeah , so grow your own kids.
Yeah, obviously a lot of peopleonline.
You'll see them doing the.
You know get the hardwoodtimber has to be cut down I
think it's no more than a coupleof months beforehand and then
you drill the holes, put in thedowel and cover with beeswax.
Yeah, and that's one way ofdoing it.
(22:46):
I think it can be quite slow toget a return on them and I
think anything from anythingfrom one to three years before
you'll start to see any yeah anyharvest, so tell us about your
kids.
They're slightly different, sothese ones are.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
So the dowels that you're talking about, that's for
outside and you're reallyworking with nature there.
Yeah, the dowels, I mean that'sgreat.
It would allow to a lifetime,like once you do start getting
the mushrooms.
They keep coming and we don'tprovide that yet we do an indoor
kitchen countertop little growkit.
(23:24):
So I think it's two pounds orsomething.
It is.
Yeah, and so basically it's acondensed version of what we
have in our grow room.
So we have like a 10 or 12 poundsubstrate block in our grow
room and, yeah, so everything'sdone.
The mycelium, it's finishedthis incubation stage and
(23:45):
basically when you purchase it,you just make a little incision
on the grow kit, you put it onyour kitchen countertop or a
windowsill and we give you alittle spray bottle and you're
just keeping it really humid.
So a lot of good light andhumidity and the kitchen is,
it's warm enough.
We do it with lion's mane andoyster mushrooms.
(24:06):
They're quite easy to grow.
So yeah, it's been reallysuccessful.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
And those would be the fastest way of getting a
actual yield within a few days.
I mean it can differ, of course, because with everyone's
climate inside their house canvary.
So at the very least you'll geta yield within the first two
weeks, you know like it kind ofneeds to be 20 degrees, doesn't
(24:33):
it For?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
for mushrooms roughly it can go as low as 16.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, between 16 and like 23, something like that.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
And optimum and you're guys in for your houses
that you're growing yourselvesin.
Like what are you in for there?
You're trying to keep it atwhat?
20 degrees?
Speaker 2 (24:51):
In our grow room.
It's about, yeah, between 20and 22.
Okay, we grow a variety ofmushrooms in the long grow room
at the moment, so we tweak it.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Yeah, that took that took a bit of work, a bit of
research and development to finda kind of a golden space where
turkey tail can live amongstracie, can also live amongst
lion's mane and oyster mushrooms.
Now the oysters.
Those have always been known tobe I guess, for lack of a
(25:24):
better word probably the easiestmushroom to grow, because the
mycelium is so aggressive thatit's basically pushing itself
out of the bag.
So, as Eilish had mentionedbefore, with the grow kits, as
soon as you pull it out of the,the hemp sack that it's sitting
in, you just slit a little holein there or you can slit a
(25:44):
straight line just to exposefresh air into the actual growth
kit bag.
In regards to the largerversions that we have in our
grow rooms, these guys, ifthey're ready to go and, let's
say, we happen to forget to slitit for whatever reason, we'll
come back the next day andyou'll just see them starting to
(26:04):
push out through the bag.
Yeah, because it's just soaggressive, which is beautiful,
because it's a very nutritiousmushroom that you can.
I've seen people grow on oldbooks.
We've seen people grow on oldpairs of jeans, stacks of
(26:24):
cardboard.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
You don't eat those mushrooms though.
Yeah, I wouldn't suggest eatingthem, show them how easy it is
to grow those.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Yeah, because those mushrooms, they will absorb
everything that they're growingfrom the growing medium and
they'll uptake all that into thefruit body.
Okay, so if you're eatingsomething that grew off of blue
denim, then you're going to geta lot of that blue dye and you
dye it.
No, it's not good.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
What about the grow kits?
What's the growing media thatthey're in?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, that's your stuff.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
So the grow medium for the kits it's a mixture of
native hardwood.
So we source all of our materialto create these substrate
blocks from either the forestryindustry local saw mills local
saw mills and local farmers, whoa lot of the material that I'm
(27:18):
going to outline is considered abyproduct, and so we use an
Irish hardwood it be it eitherash or oak Oak preferably, but
you know, ash is a wonderfulalternative straw.
So we will source an organicstraw and then we'll also
(27:41):
utilize a soil hole.
Now, those are the threeessential basics.
You can do without the straw.
The straw is something Iutilize, particularly when
producing oyster mushrooms, justbecause I find that straw helps
to expand the substratepotential for the hardwood and
(28:05):
the soil hole.
If I was just doing soil holeand the hardwood, I'd have to be
utilizing way more than that'snecessary.
So I'll use equal parts of allthree of them to create the
oyster mushrooms and thenbasically to fertilize the
blocks.
We use rock minerals.
So we utilize all naturalfertilization, nothing chemical
(28:29):
laced, nothing liquid.
It's all rock dust.
So it'll be either gypsum,which you can find all over the
country, and then a favorite ofmine is a rock mineral known as
azomite, and the azomite is avolcanic rock dust that carries
thousands of trace and macrominerals.
(28:51):
So you can do without that aswell, but that's something that
I find really produces awonderful flavor in the
mushrooms, but also it has thepotential of leaching in a lot
of those trace and macrominerals.
So you'll end up with that inthe fruit body, which I find has
a far more superior healthbenefit.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, it was interesting you said about the
rock dust, because there's agardening products called rock
dust, which I've never used, bythe way, but I know a lot of
gardeners who are growingvegetables for show gardening
absolutely swear by this rockdust and the product is
available in Ireland and it'ssupposed to be superb at growing
(29:37):
vegetables, but I've never usedit.
So it was interesting that yousaid that now as well, because
it's loaded with minerals thatyou just won't get in any other
fertilizer, I guess.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Yeah, well, a lot of what we, because, as I always
outlined before, we both enjoygrowing herbs.
Amongst growing herbs, we alsoreally enjoy growing other
unique plants and fruits.
So we'll source heirloom apples, we'll source heirloom veg.
(30:10):
I really enjoy growing cacti.
Cacti has always been a reallyfun plant for me to grow,
especially coming fromCalifornia.
Yeah, it was just the righttemperament for it.
It was a great introduction tolearning how to care for a plant
, because it's a great lazyperson's plant.
You know.
It's their drought tolerant.
They don't require a whole lotbecause in their natural habitat
(30:34):
they're basically growing anunfertilized sand.
But if you really take intoaccount that, it's a plant like
any other, with uniqueproperties, obviously, but they
basically, if you treat them ina unique way, with particular
(30:55):
ratios rock minerals,fertilization, different compost
mixtures, whether you practicea no-till regenerative farming
all those things have a prettyquick reaction.
In regards to cacti, a lot ofthem could either be very slow
growing or very fast growing.
Within the year you can doubleup in size.
So they're very responsive towhat it is that you're feeding
(31:18):
the soil.
So a lot of what I learnedabout rock minerals came from
having to feed my cacti,basically because I could see an
immediate reaction.
But if I feed it on a Monday by, I say, the following Thursday
or the week after, you'll find aunique amount of growth.
(31:40):
It could be fractional,probably about a few inches, if
you're monitoring it closely.
But in regards to somethingthat's known as a slow grower,
it's tremendous and to see thevigor and the health.
So, rock minerals for youraudience.
I would highly encourage all ofyou to really look into it
because there's especially forthose who want to practice a
(32:00):
regenerative farming.
I find things like rock mineralcover crops utilizing herbal
teas as well, compost teas likenettles yeah, nettles is a
favorite of ours.
So I highly highly recommendeverybody get on the rock
(32:22):
minerals.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Yeah, it's something I'll have to look into a bit
more because, as I say, somepeople that I know that grow for
shows and so on.
They swear by it.
So it was obviously somethingthat they give their plans
everything to try and win thecompetition.
So there's obviously something,something good there.
Just to go back to the kits fora second so they're coming in a
mesh bag, you slit it open, youwater are sprayed regularly not
(32:48):
water regularly sprayedregularly.
Do you sit it on some kind of atray or what's?
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Yeah, you could.
Yeah, just to absorb anyresidue water, just put it on a
plate or something simple.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah, you're going to get one flush of crop from that
, or?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
you can get up to three flushes, yeah, so once you
harvest the first flush, youwill rehydrate the block, put it
in a big bowl of waterovernight and then you just
leave it back and do the processagain.
Just missed it about threetimes a day.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
And roughly between each flush.
You're looking at a week, areyou?
Speaker 2 (33:24):
It gets longer after each flush, but you just have to
have patience.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
It's not dead.
So a couple of weeks, so youget a couple of flushes and you
definitely get two flushes.
And what kind of harvest areyou talking about?
So you know 10 good pieces ofmushrooms.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
You could get at least a quarter of a kilogram.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Well, yeah, so at least 250 grams.
You know it's in regards to theoysters.
They come out as a nice,beautiful bloom.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
It's quite big.
It's about like you can growlike three times the size of the
actual block.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Wow, and you're doing your kits in three different
farms, are you or so?
Speaker 2 (34:06):
oysters.
You have three oysters, and alion's mane and a female oyster.
Yeah, we're good.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Yeah, we're still working to master the other
unique types of oyster mushroomsin order to present them as a
girl kit as well, but those Ifound to be quite susceptible to
temperature change, more sothan the one we offer now.
So, in regards to, like, pinkoyster, golden oyster and other
(34:36):
unique forms of oyster mushrooms, those are very responsive to
temperature change, whetherpositive or negative.
So because of that and wehaven't mastered it quite yet we
wouldn't offer those particularones in girl kits, but it's
something that will be on thehorizon.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Yeah, for the next couple of years.
Obviously, mushrooms, andparticularly the medicinal side
of mushrooms, is obviously ahuge growth area and, as you
said, there's massive researchnow starting to back up the
claims.
Where do you see Gehlig fungoifargo on over the next couple of
years?
What's the wish that?
(35:13):
I suppose the plan.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, the plan is to expand.
Currently, we're at CaloFarmers Market every week.
We provide mushrooms to a newrestaurant in Cookehine, higgs
Field.
Great guy Connor there he's thechef.
Yeah, so just we'd love to getup to Dublin, be in America.
(35:38):
Up there, we sell online.
We sell all our medicinalproducts online, which is great,
so we're shipping them acrossthe country.
Yeah, get into a few morerestaurants, have a few fast
food orders.
Yeah, have fun with it.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Yeah, a lot of it now at this moment is just getting
people familiar with the brandand educating people on the
potential of these mushrooms.
As you mentioned before foryourself that the mushrooms that
kind of put this whole thing onyour scope was lion's mane, and
(36:16):
we find that a lot of the folksat our local farmers market are
the same.
They either heard about lion'smane through TikTok or through
Instagram or somewhere on theinternet, or a friend, a family
member, somebody had mentionedit to them.
So once they come acrossourselves and they see the
(36:38):
products that we offer in therange and they can actually see
a fresh lion's mane presented infront of them, because we sell
them also fresh for chefs andfor at home cooks.
So for someone to just maybethe closest you've ever gotten
to a lion's mane would have beenGoogle, a Google image search.
Now you're actually standing infront of one and we encourage
(37:00):
everyone to be familiar with it,to look at it, to touch it if
you like.
So a lot of it is based on justgetting the education portion
right and getting peoplecomfortable with knowing how to
consume that mushroom.
Our suggested means of dose foreither it be a liquid or
(37:23):
brewing your own tea with ourpowders.
So that's been the fun part ofit.
It's, in this beginning stagefor us as the educational
portion of actually getting thischat with folks If they're
willing to give us a good fiveminutes or 10 minutes of their
time.
We're basically hosting apodcast there at our mushroom
(37:45):
stall every weekend.
So it's a beautiful thing, youknow, because most Carlovians,
and even folks that come fromdifferent parts of the country
as well, we've had folks come infrom Galway, from Cork, from
Dublin, from the UK, some folksfrom the States, whether they be
just visiting or they heardabout us and they wanted to come
(38:07):
by and actually come check itout.
So it's been a lovely thingjust getting to see people's
reaction.
And then, obviously, the diehards, as I like to call them,
the folks that come in everyweekend to buy their fresh
mushroom or to buy a new supplyof their powders or their
(38:28):
liquids and just to hear theirreaction and how they've been
benefiting from it.
you know it's a beautiful thing.
It's more than we could haveever asked for.
You know, it's one thing thatyou can feel it amongst yourself
, but to really see it workingin real time and its reaction to
people in the field you knowit's a big nerd like ourselves
(38:52):
it's a great way for us toconduct live action research.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Yeah, it gives you a good feeling that what you're
doing is having an effect andhaving the effect that you want.
It was a question I was goingto ask and you started to touch
on it a little bit.
You're going to Kerala's KeralaFarmers Market now.
For how long?
Speaker 2 (39:12):
We've been there for almost a year now, right.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
So over that period of time, obviously not in
specific, but what are yourcustomers saying?
Repeat customers in terms ofmedicinal benefits.
You know what are you seeingpeople coming back and saying
this has happened or that hashappened.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Yeah, so, rashi, definitely the lowered blood
pressure and less stress,improved sleep that would be
specific for Rashi.
Yeah, we have a lot of folksthat are under a bone
chemotherapy or have donerecently and that they come in
(39:49):
for a turkey tail.
That's quite sought after.
He's main for mental clarity.
A lot of parents, mental fog,people that are doing exams and
working offices and stuff likebehind a computer all day.
That's really strenuous on yourbrain, yeah.
So I mean, I have one customerand she's doing a master's in
(40:15):
cyber therapy and she justswears by it.
We have a mix of the three andshe's just like every time I get
a test result back, I'm likethese mushrooms, so like there's
so many different stories andit's kind of hard to believe for
this right there in your face.
And these people are just sohappy and we're just happy to be
(40:36):
able to give them a really highquality product you can't find.
Really, we're probably the onlypeople in Ireland that grow and
produce it all ourselves.
Like you said, there's a lot ofmushroom products out there.
They're not grown in Ireland.
We have to be really consciousabout particularly Chinese grown
(41:00):
mushrooms because the pollutionlevel is so high.
These mushrooms absorb a lot ofthe toxins that are in the air
and in the ground.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
Particularly heavy metals.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
So that's something to keep in mind.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
Yeah, that's one thing that we like to reiterate
to people, because we emphasizeso much on the background and
educational portion of it.
I like to remind folks, whetheryou purchase anything for
months or not, the importantthing is that you ask these
questions.
It's like where were thesemushrooms grown?
(41:34):
Where were they sourced from?
Is there a transparency there?
Can that brand that claims tobe an American brand
wholeheartedly claim thatthey're where mushrooms are
American produced or Irishproduced or what have you?
(41:54):
Some place at least that has aknown track record for
environmental protection, wherethere's a chain of awareness and
a chain of command in terms ofknowing what can and can't go
into these fruit bodies?
Is there a certain analysisthat have been done on it, as
(42:15):
Eilish had pointed before that?
The Asian market.
Unfortunately, that's one ofthe places where you could get
bulk amounts of it at a fractionof a price that you'd find if
you were to get purely Irishgrown, for instance.
But it comes at a cost becausethere's already independent lab
(42:37):
research.
There's a crowd in Italy thathave done recent research I see
it as recent as this year wherethey've tested about 10 of the
most popular mushroom brands andthey noticed that at least 70%
(42:58):
of them didn't have themushrooms that were advertised.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Or the actual mushroom fruit body.
So there's a lot ofmisconception about mycelium and
mycelium have a highermedicinal content, so a lot of
mushroom powders in the marketwould be a grain and the
mycelium.
So essentially you're gettinglike 78% rice but a mushroom
(43:23):
mycelium.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
It's not the same as a mushroom powder.
That has been.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
It's not the actual, even mushroom.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Okay, it's just the mycelium, yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
I feel like that's a topic for another day.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
It's a topic for another day.
Yeah, right, but it is truethat and to go back to my
situation, where I was lookingat Lion's man and you see online
there's any amount of sourcesof it you really do not have any
clue what you're getting inthat talk.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
They don't tell you where it's grown.
Very rarely they'll tell youwhere it's grown or if it's
actual mushroom fruit bodies.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
Yeah, that's along the lines of being vigilant in
terms of looking at all labels.
When you're going to a shop ora health shop or any place where
you're going to consumesomething, I think it'd be
beneficial for the person toreally take the extra time to at
least go and scan over thelabel, look at the way things
(44:23):
are worded.
That's one thing that reallyput that into our scope as well
was when we wanted to.
There's certain mushrooms thatwe can't cultivate that we
really enjoy.
One of my favorite ones wouldbe chaga.
Now, chaga typically grows onbirch trees living birch trees
(44:44):
Now you can definitely find itout in the wild if you know what
it looks like, but the problemwith it is because we can't
cultivate it indoors and in ourfarm.
It's something that we reallyhad to be diligent about
sourcing it from high qualityproducers and then had forged it
responsibly, someone whoprocessed it responsibly, and
(45:07):
that takes a bit of homework,which some folks do not like
homework I could understand thatbut it's worth the effort
because at least you know thatyou're not doing more harm than
you are.
Good Because if you're sourcingsomething that comes from a
place that has a long history ofheavy manufacturing and all the
(45:28):
exhaust goes right to theatmosphere.
You know as well as I do whatgoes up must come down.
So all those toxins and heavymetals that are in the
atmosphere are going to findtheir way into the soil, can be
taken right up into the fruitbody.
And if you're even given thefruit body, as Eilish had
mentioned, because most brandstend to utilize mycelium,
(45:50):
because it's far easier tocreate mycelium than it is to
create the fruit body and it'sfar more profitable by expanding
on just mycelium basedsupplements and then just
pumping that out in a factory,because mycelium and if you have
(46:12):
a really good mycelium based tostart with, when you grow it
from beginning to end, it couldtake maybe, I say, two weeks
tops.
So if you're doing that on amass scale, you can pump out a
lot of stuff.
And if people aren't too awareabout the differences between
whole fruit and just myceliumbased supplements, then they're
(46:39):
throwing their money to the wind.
They're hard on money andthey're not quite aware of the
differences between somethingthat's time tested, which would
be the fruit bodies, like inregards to Rashi, that has over
a millennia of documented use inAyurvedic and Chinese medicines
.
(46:59):
Turkey Tail, as Eilish mentionedbefore, that's one of the most
studied mushrooms in clinicaltrials in regards to the immune
system and fighting cancer cellsand tumors.
But scientists will extract asynthesized version from the
actual fruit body of a TurkeyTail and then things like lion's
(47:19):
mane.
Like all of our ancestors whohave been utilizing these
mushrooms as a source ofnutrition or just a source of
food, as far as I know, none ofthem were digging into the
ground just to source themycelium.
They were getting the fruitbody from the dead tree or the
ground or wherever.
(47:40):
The mycelium mat.
I'm certain it has its ownnutritional values, of course,
but when you're comparing themto the fruit body it's a tough
comparison really.
So that's our life's model isproducing whole fruit byproducts
(48:02):
.
So whether it be the powders orliquids, those are always going
to be 100% whole fruit.
And then for the fresh stuff,obviously it's going to be whole
fruit, because we just can'tsit there with just a big mat of
mycelium and expect people toknow what to do with that it's
really interesting.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
As I say, we've sort of got around a lot of topics
here and while in some ways it'snot gardening as such but I
think for listeners in thepodcast, a lot of them are
growing their own food the thingwith mushrooms is that you can
grow it all year round.
That's a huge advantage to havesomething that you can harvest
(48:45):
all year round from the growkits.
I know you guys have websites.
Maybe tell people where theycan find you.
I know you're doing the CarlOak Farmers Market on Instagram,
I think, so maybe telleverybody where they can find
you, where they can check outGaelic Fungi Farms.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yeah, so it's gaelicfungifarmsie.
We're on Instagram as GaelicFungi Farms.
You can hit us an email ifyou've got any questions about
any of the products, or come bySaturday mornings at the
exchange in Carlotown.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
Brilliant, as I say, it's been a really interesting
chat.
We've gone around the topics.
We've had the dog entering theroom a couple of times to say
hello, but it's been fascinating.
And I suppose Fungi issomething that gardeners are
well aware of, but I'm not surethat we've.
You know, this level ofexpertise and knowledge is
(49:38):
something that's great tointroduce into.
So, Eilish and Michael, thankyou very much for coming on.
Master McGarrett and podcast.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
Thank you so much, john.
Thank you John.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
So that's been this week's episode.
A huge thanks to the guys forcoming on.
It's a really interesting chat.
As I say, I've come acrossGaelic Fungi Farm only recently
and the products and, as I say,I have been doing a good bit of
research on Linesman of late.
So, yeah, really interesting.
The grow kits are reallyinteresting.
You know, as I say, somethingthat you can have growing all
(50:10):
year round and maybe as anadditional to your veg and fruit
gardens outside.
I think the grow kits will be anice addition.
So, really interesting chat.
As I say, we've gone off topica little bit this week, but it's
a really interesting chat andsomething that I think we can
all learn from.
So that's been this week'sepisode.
Thanks for listening.
Until the next time, happygardening, bye.
How's it going everybody?
Welcome to episode 192, masterMacGarden Podcasts.
Now, a couple of weeks ago Imentioned that over these next
few weeks we might be going offtopic a little bit, and this
(00:21):
week's episode I'm delighted tobe joined by Michael and Eilish
from Gaelic Fungi Farm, and thisis an interesting topic.
As I say, strictly speaking,it's gardening vaguely gardening
, I guess but fungi, mushrooms,mycelium, they're all very much
related to growing and I supposewe talk a huge amount on the
(00:44):
podcast about vegetable growingthrough the months and we've
just had the episode a couple ofweeks ago where we're talking
about what to grow in Septemberand that list is getting
substantially smaller.
So I think there is anopportunity here to maybe branch
out a little bit and try orhave a go at growing our own
mushrooms at home, and the guyssell a homegrown kit, so we're
(01:05):
going to talk about that.
But also they sell some unusualmushrooms well, not unusual but
highly acclaimed mushrooms likeLyons Main and that's widely
claimed to have huge medicinalbenefits.
Turkey Tail as well, and Isuppose in my house I'm a bit of
a fungi fan.
I've watched fantastic fungi onNetflix about five times at
(01:30):
this stage and I always find itinteresting.
So I think it's going to be aninteresting topic.
As I say, a little bit offtopic for our typical garden
stuff, but, guys, you're very,very welcome to join our garden
podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Thank you so much, John.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Thank you, John.
Thank you for inviting us.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, you're very welcome.
So I suppose I only recentlycame across to you guys.
You're not that far from me, soI'm on the east side of Kerala
town and I think you guys arelike on the Wexford side of
Kerala town.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, we're just outside the town in Balan.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Brilliant.
Yeah, so it's great to seebusinesses like this and
obviously, as I say, I've read alot about Lyons Main and the
benefits of that and then to seesomebody producing the
mushrooms themselves and dropsand I think powders or tablets
so close to home is quite good.
So maybe tell us a little bitabout your story first and how
(02:25):
this came to be.
I know it's quite a relativelynew business, but tell us all
about it.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
So we got started initially as a I suppose as a
hobby at first, just to see ifwe can get our hands accustomed
to the intricacies of growingmushrooms.
I'm from California originally.
That's where Eilish and I hadmet first, so we, like anybody
(02:53):
else really, we got intomushrooms kind of just randomly.
We all grew up accustomed toeither your basic like
portobello and button mushrooms,cremini mushrooms, but then,
thankfully for us, being that wewere living in the Bay Area in
California, around the SanFrancisco Bay Area, you run into
(03:16):
a beautiful eclectic mix ofpeople and cultures and everyone
has so many different ways ofpreparing particular dishes, and
a lot of those dishes at thetime for us were really aimed
towards more plant based.
So because of that, we werelooking for great alternatives
for protein and one of thebiggest ones that we were always
(03:41):
led to was usually gourmetexotic mushrooms.
You know, at least in regardsto the stuff that we were mostly
accustomed to.
So for that we would go intohigher end grocery stores in
order to find them and luckilyenough they'd be there because
there was a demand for them.
(04:02):
There's a, as I'm sure, in anyother city or any other location
that you find, you'll find anice, strong hub of people that
are real conscious and realforward as to the types of
produce that's available to themand what they'll ask the
grocery store to order for them.
So in this instance, we wereable to find everything from
(04:24):
lion's mane to oyster mushrooms,shiitake and what's another one
chanterelles, and then they'dalso find some seasonal things
too that were, I'm sure, wereprobably foraged.
So that's really what got usstarted with it, but, as with
anything, especially this dayand age, it started getting
(04:47):
really expensive.
You know that produce.
It was wonderful to come across, but it was something that we
required pretty much daily, andbecause of that, it started to
burn a hole through our walletsand we found loads of
information on the internet andwe started buying more books in
(05:09):
regards to mushrooms, a lot ofthem from your man, paul Stamets
, one of the producers andcreators of the Fantastic Fun
guy that you mentioned earlier,and in these books they outlined
the procedure in which how tostart a mushroom farm, whether
it be in a small scale to a muchcommercial scale.
(05:31):
And, reading this honestly, allthe ingredients that we needed
were right at our local hardwarestore.
So we just started the journeythere.
We just started slowly, everyweek, with every paycheck, we
would go in and go acquire allthe different pieces that these
books recommended, these YouTubevideos recommended.
(05:54):
And then the most difficultthing that we found not
difficult in hindsight, but atthat time the most difficult
thing for us to source wouldhave been the cultures, the
actual mycelium, or the mushroomcultures to create the mycelium
.
But the beautiful thing aboutfungi and about mycology and
(06:15):
then anything that involvesmushrooms is there's a beautiful
community and culture revolvingaround it where a lot of these
folks which I'm sure it's thesame, when you get into heirloom
farming, you get intoregenerative farming, no-till
farming and anything that has todo with farming.
That's really you kind of findand gravitate towards your tribe
(06:38):
and within that tribeeveryone's going to have their
little bits here and there onhow to source particular
ingredients, particularmaterials.
So that's basically how wefound them and from there we
just started growing them inplastic containers in our
wardrobe, and this is still inCalifornia.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
You're not in Ireland at this stage.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, this is in California and also we were
really into growing our ownherbs and medicinal side of
things.
So that was obviously a mainattraction of the medicinal
mushrooms and so, yeah, it wasjust as a hobby, just for
ourselves, we would share withfriends.
The demand was growing quitebig.
(07:17):
Once everybody knew that wewere growing it, they wanted to
get some off us.
You could grow a lot in yourwardrobe.
Surprise, yeah.
But yeah, where the ideassparked to potentially start a
farm in Ireland was my dad hadgotten some surgery and he had a
reaction to the anesthesia.
(07:38):
I was trying to get some linesmade because his memory was just
really atrocious for a fewweeks and quite frightening.
So I was messaging farmers ortrying to find somebody online
and I got absolutely zeroresponse.
So I was like, wow, there's noaccess to this in Ireland and
obviously with the hugemedicinal potential of them, a
(08:01):
lot of people need it.
Yeah, so that was the firstlittle seed drop.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
And when was that?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Um gosh, like maybe 2017, 18.
Okay, and then we had our sonin 2019.
And then so he was about sixmonths old when COVID hit and
the whole city shut down and theworld went mad.
We decided we should leave thecity and move to Ireland for so
(08:32):
many reasons, but, yeah, thatwas our chance to take it to the
next level.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yeah, it's funny you say that because, um, lyons me
and I've been, I've been readinga bit about it for a long time.
I've never actually startedtaking it yet, um, but I've been
reading about it and thebenefits and potential benefits
and, uh, the reason I asked whenwas that was?
I researched it a couple ofyears ago and you're right,
(08:57):
there was.
You know, there was very fewpeople that you could say, um,
you know very few places youcould get it.
But, funny enough, now, when I,when I look it up, you guys are
coming up, which is good.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Great.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah, that was, um, as I mentioned before, the place
that we would find it in,living in the Bay Area, would
either be at that high endgrocery stores or, on occasion,
if we were to stumble upon afarmer's market, either in the
Berkeley area, um, there you'dfind mushroom stalls and then
(09:33):
there they give you an array ofchoices to pick from, as well as
all the education behind it.
That's where we actually gotthe idea to form a, a direct to
consumer business model whereit's not only just having the
mushrooms available but it'salso educating folks on the, the
(09:53):
, the magic, I guess you can say, of these beautiful mushrooms
as the potential for healing andthe potential for, um, the
holistic way of utilizing theminerals and and and particular
bio available chemicals that arein these mushrooms to benefit
your overall health.
(10:14):
Anything from your mind forLyons main to your heart.
Health with shiitake, youroverall health with my personal
favorites by the name of Rishi.
Okay, yeah, so from there, asEilish was saying, that we
decided, you know, we shouldjust uproot, move across the
world and then see what we cando here in Ireland for ourselves
(10:37):
.
At first and then it was alwaysan idea we wanted to play with,
with upscaling that productionfrom our wardrobe to just see
what potential can go from there.
You know, we're just with thebright idea and sure enough, you
know, we decided to put thework in and we, we got access to
a family farm of her, of heruncles, and and then from there
(11:02):
we just started buying up thepieces, like we did before.
You know, we utilize shippingcontainers and we refurbish them
, and from that we just startedadding little bits here and
there.
We created a laboratory wherewe do all of our mycelia work.
We created a kitchen where wedo all of our clean production,
(11:27):
for the powders, for the liquids, even for preparing the grow
kids.
All those little pieces were sointricate and and unique to the
business model that so, can Isay, the attention to detail, to
where we really wanted to makesure everything was done just
right, before we ever gotstarted in full production.
(11:47):
You know.
So that took a bit of took abit of time, but we finally got
there and now we're finallygetting the ball rolling.
You know, this year, yeah, andso you're.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
You're producing from what I can see from your
website and correct me if I'mwrong you're producing Lionsman,
rashi and Turkey Tail currentlyand you have grow kids and we
talk about those, like theLionsman from medicinal.
From medicinal purposes,lionsman is seen, as you know,
that I suppose one of the topmushrooms that you can grow.
(12:19):
Maybe tell us a little bitabout the potential benefits of
Lionsman Rashi and so on?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
So, yeah, lionsman is definitely most famous for its
cognitive support.
It's a neurogenic mushroom, soit actually creates new neuro
pathways in the brain there's.
It's amazing now likeeverything's become a mainstream
and all this information iseasily accessed by people
Because there's so much studies.
(12:46):
There's a lot of clinicaltrials.
It's Turkey Tail and it'scancer research.
Turkey Tail contains thesepolysaccharides PCP and PSP and
PSK, and they're been isolatedand studied for their cancer
killing potential.
So that's a really popular one.
(13:08):
Honestly, they're all just aspopular.
Rashi is native to Asia andit's known as the mushroom of
immortality, so it's been used.
All of these have been used intraditional Chinese medicine for
thousands of years, so we havethe knowledge of the ancestors
(13:29):
and, as well, modern scientiststo really back up how these work
.
And it's just, it's reallyphenomenal when you give
somebody a Rashi tincture andthey come back a week later
almost in tears because theirblood pressure has come down.
They've been trying to get offpharmaceuticals for so long and
it's just dramatically changedthe life really quickly.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
And I know obviously any claims.
You know you're always you haveto caveat them and all the rest
of it.
But on a personal level, do youtake all these mushrooms and
you know from the time youstarted what difference like
you're obviously very healthylooking people.
You're growing your own herbs,you said which would be
(14:15):
interesting to hear which onesyou were growing as well for
medicinal purposes.
But, specifically to themushrooms.
Have you seen any personalbenefits differences?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Yeah, the most hardcore physical difference I
would notice is that we haven'tgotten sick in a really long
time, like no colds or flus.
We would have been quitehealthy anyway, like just normal
diabetes or anything.
So for us personally, improve,sleep more energized, not
getting sick, which was a bigone for me.
(14:47):
I would often catch colds orwhatever.
Yeah, and I noticed when westarted taking the lines I was
actually making our website atthe time I had no idea how to
make a website, but I really,really noticed good cognitive
function on just getting up andbeing very productive with that,
(15:07):
because I don't normally dooffice works, not what we're
doing where it runs on in themushroom farm.
So that was a key notestandpoint for me as well.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Yeah, for myself, a lot of this work that we do
because we're still small scale,so a lot of it requires
everything to be done by hand,whether it be creating the
substrate that the mushroom andthe mycelium grow from,
everything's just done from thebottom up, so we don't have any
heavy machinery to, I guess, tomake our lives easier just yet.
(15:41):
So because of that, a lot ofwhat I do requires being up even
at the crack of dawn.
Same with Ilys she has to getup early just to go harvest and
then make sure that the growroom is optimal, all the meters
are reading correctly, and thenwe split our shifts by the time
she's done with her end of theshift, usually around the
(16:04):
afternoon.
That's when my shift starts,and it can run all the way until
about half one to two in themorning.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
You're juggling it with your small child.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
that's why yeah, and then just also juggling our own
personal time, time with our son, time with our dog and our cat
all that it's all intertwinedinto the whole lifestyle, as
most farmers would know.
So because of those late hoursI find my mind from going to bed
(16:38):
late to waking up early.
My mind would just be razzled.
Most of the time it's just lackof sleep.
My attention wouldn't be quitethere.
You and I could be talking fora good hour to face to face, and
I'd be agreeing with everythingyou're saying or disagreeing
with it.
You asked me five minutes rightafter that conversation and I
(16:59):
just give you a blank stare asif I have no idea what you're
talking about.
So after we got enoughproduction to where we can have
this as a supplement forourselves daily, then I started
seeing the big positivedifference, and for me it took
all of its anecdotal, of course,and everyone's going to react
(17:20):
to things differently.
So for myself, taking thesemushrooms daily between anywhere
between three to and I saythree to seven weeks, that's
where, myself, I actuallystarted to be conscious enough
of the difference that I wasmaking for myself In terms of my
(17:42):
for Reishi, the reason why Imentioned that one would be my
favorite is because it reacts tomy body.
As far as I noticed the mostpositive in regards to my
anxieties, a lot of my stressthe lion's mane would have been
more functional for me in termsof clearing a lot of that mental
(18:05):
fog that I deal with in themorning.
Long term, I hope that it'll besomething that I can rely on
for minimizing if and when I maybe susceptible to things like
Alzheimer's or dementia, whichyou know, that's one thing that
I study often, just because mygranny had unfortunately
(18:25):
succumbed to that and, from whatI'm reading, they reckon that
it could be hereditary.
They're still trying to do longterm studies to see how you
know whether that is or not.
So because of that, it's stilltoo early to tell whether her
kids, my aunts and my uncles aresusceptible to it and if not,
(18:46):
it could jump onto myself.
So that's something that Iworry about and throughout the
research that we've done forthese mushrooms, we find that
lion's mane can help in thereduction of the severity of
that disease.
It's a daily thing that youreally need to be conscious and
aware of within yourself.
(19:06):
You know it's a question weoften get asked from folks
whether it's something that theycan feel the benefits of right
away, and it's the same asanything else Any other vitamin
that I'd like to mention.
It's just you may or may notfeel an immediate reaction
within the first few days.
It's really something that's.
It's a lifestyle.
You know it's.
(19:26):
You're not going to, you're notgoing to become the most
healthy person overnight by justcompletely changing your
lifestyle and diet in just a 24hour period.
You know it's truly a lifestylechoice and a lifestyle change
that can take weeks, months forsome folks, but where we're at
now for myself at least speakingI can definitely feel a
(19:50):
positive difference when I'musing it and when I'm not using
it.
There's a noticeable differencethere that I could actually
write down on paper and then,you know, explain to people and
that's in relation to the,that's in relation to you know,
feeling a bit stressed or yourmind racing or whatever it's.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
it's that difference.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Yeah, even even to things as simple as your gut
health and the microbiome that'swithin your gut that can affect
things like inflammation,affect things like anxiety and
mild depression or justdigestion.
You know, you could, I cannotice we stay as healthy as
(20:34):
humanly possible.
You know, with our diet.
Choices are the things that wegrow, the things that we consume
from local farmers, organicfarmers.
We do the best that we can, youknow, with what's available,
but at the same time, certainfactors being it that we're
(20:56):
first time business owners,first time large scale farmers,
a lot of it entails somesleepless nights, you know, some
really early morning, someworking out in very torrential
weather, very cold, stormy,lifting, heavy, bending low.
(21:18):
A lot of this stuff that wewere raised around, fortunate
enough, but we didn'tnecessarily grow up doing it
ourselves.
Yeah, yeah, you know so it'sgiving us a whole new respect
and a whole new appreciation forwhere our food comes from.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yeah, for sure, just to go off topic, you mentioned
you grew herbs medicinally.
What herbs were you growingyourself?
As you said, you said you.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yeah, so we have a lot of mugwort.
I have St John's wort, comfreyrosemary thyme, we have mullin.
What else do we have?
Speaker 3 (21:58):
White sage.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yeah, we had like the regular kitchen stuff.
Yeah, but a lot of mugwort andSt John's wort and then I forage
as much as I could as well.
Seabox thorn are just foragedfor the first time.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Very good.
Yeah, you have to go somewhere.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yeah, luckily for us, my mother has a caravan down in
Morris Castle.
Yeah, so there's tons.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah, brilliant, yeah , so grow your own kids.
Yeah, obviously a lot of peopleonline.
You'll see them doing the.
You know get the hardwoodtimber has to be cut down I
think it's no more than a coupleof months beforehand and then
you drill the holes, put in thedowel and cover with beeswax.
Yeah, and that's one way ofdoing it.
(22:46):
I think it can be quite slow toget a return on them and I
think anything from anythingfrom one to three years before
you'll start to see any yeah anyharvest, so tell us about your
kids.
They're slightly different, sothese ones are.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
So the dowels that you're talking about, that's for
outside and you're reallyworking with nature there.
Yeah, the dowels, I mean that'sgreat.
It would allow to a lifetime,like once you do start getting
the mushrooms.
They keep coming and we don'tprovide that yet we do an indoor
kitchen countertop little growkit.
(23:24):
So I think it's two pounds orsomething.
It is.
Yeah, and so basically it's acondensed version of what we
have in our grow room.
So we have like a 10 or 12 poundsubstrate block in our grow
room and, yeah, so everything'sdone.
The mycelium, it's finishedthis incubation stage and
(23:45):
basically when you purchase it,you just make a little incision
on the grow kit, you put it onyour kitchen countertop or a
windowsill and we give you alittle spray bottle and you're
just keeping it really humid.
So a lot of good light andhumidity and the kitchen is,
it's warm enough.
We do it with lion's mane andoyster mushrooms.
(24:06):
They're quite easy to grow.
So yeah, it's been reallysuccessful.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
And those would be the fastest way of getting a
actual yield within a few days.
I mean it can differ, of course, because with everyone's
climate inside their house canvary.
So at the very least you'll geta yield within the first two
weeks, you know like it kind ofneeds to be 20 degrees, doesn't
(24:33):
it For?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
for mushrooms roughly it can go as low as 16.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, between 16 and like 23, something like that.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
And optimum and you're guys in for your houses
that you're growing yourselvesin.
Like what are you in for there?
You're trying to keep it atwhat?
20 degrees?
Speaker 2 (24:51):
In our grow room.
It's about, yeah, between 20and 22.
Okay, we grow a variety ofmushrooms in the long grow room
at the moment, so we tweak it.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Yeah, that took that took a bit of work, a bit of
research and development to finda kind of a golden space where
turkey tail can live amongstracie, can also live amongst
lion's mane and oyster mushrooms.
Now the oysters.
Those have always been known tobe I guess, for lack of a
(25:24):
better word probably the easiestmushroom to grow, because the
mycelium is so aggressive thatit's basically pushing itself
out of the bag.
So, as Eilish had mentionedbefore, with the grow kits, as
soon as you pull it out of the,the hemp sack that it's sitting
in, you just slit a little holein there or you can slit a
(25:44):
straight line just to exposefresh air into the actual growth
kit bag.
In regards to the largerversions that we have in our
grow rooms, these guys, ifthey're ready to go and, let's
say, we happen to forget to slitit for whatever reason, we'll
come back the next day andyou'll just see them starting to
(26:04):
push out through the bag.
Yeah, because it's just soaggressive, which is beautiful,
because it's a very nutritiousmushroom that you can.
I've seen people grow on oldbooks.
We've seen people grow on oldpairs of jeans, stacks of
(26:24):
cardboard.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
You don't eat those mushrooms though.
Yeah, I wouldn't suggest eatingthem, show them how easy it is
to grow those.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Yeah, because those mushrooms, they will absorb
everything that they're growingfrom the growing medium and
they'll uptake all that into thefruit body.
Okay, so if you're eatingsomething that grew off of blue
denim, then you're going to geta lot of that blue dye and you
dye it.
No, it's not good.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
What about the grow kits?
What's the growing media thatthey're in?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, that's your stuff.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
So the grow medium for the kits it's a mixture of
native hardwood.
So we source all of our materialto create these substrate
blocks from either the forestryindustry local saw mills local
saw mills and local farmers, whoa lot of the material that I'm
(27:18):
going to outline is considered abyproduct, and so we use an
Irish hardwood it be it eitherash or oak Oak preferably, but
you know, ash is a wonderfulalternative straw.
So we will source an organicstraw and then we'll also
(27:41):
utilize a soil hole.
Now, those are the threeessential basics.
You can do without the straw.
The straw is something Iutilize, particularly when
producing oyster mushrooms, justbecause I find that straw helps
to expand the substratepotential for the hardwood and
(28:05):
the soil hole.
If I was just doing soil holeand the hardwood, I'd have to be
utilizing way more than that'snecessary.
So I'll use equal parts of allthree of them to create the
oyster mushrooms and thenbasically to fertilize the
blocks.
We use rock minerals.
So we utilize all naturalfertilization, nothing chemical
(28:29):
laced, nothing liquid.
It's all rock dust.
So it'll be either gypsum,which you can find all over the
country, and then a favorite ofmine is a rock mineral known as
azomite, and the azomite is avolcanic rock dust that carries
thousands of trace and macrominerals.
(28:51):
So you can do without that aswell, but that's something that
I find really produces awonderful flavor in the
mushrooms, but also it has thepotential of leaching in a lot
of those trace and macrominerals.
So you'll end up with that inthe fruit body, which I find has
a far more superior healthbenefit.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah, it was interesting you said about the
rock dust, because there's agardening products called rock
dust, which I've never used, bythe way, but I know a lot of
gardeners who are growingvegetables for show gardening
absolutely swear by this rockdust and the product is
available in Ireland and it'ssupposed to be superb at growing
(29:37):
vegetables, but I've never usedit.
So it was interesting that yousaid that now as well, because
it's loaded with minerals thatyou just won't get in any other
fertilizer, I guess.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Yeah, well, a lot of what we, because, as I always
outlined before, we both enjoygrowing herbs.
Amongst growing herbs, we alsoreally enjoy growing other
unique plants and fruits.
So we'll source heirloom apples, we'll source heirloom veg.
(30:10):
I really enjoy growing cacti.
Cacti has always been a reallyfun plant for me to grow,
especially coming fromCalifornia.
Yeah, it was just the righttemperament for it.
It was a great introduction tolearning how to care for a plant
, because it's a great lazyperson's plant.
You know.
It's their drought tolerant.
They don't require a whole lotbecause in their natural habitat
(30:34):
they're basically growing anunfertilized sand.
But if you really take intoaccount that, it's a plant like
any other, with uniqueproperties, obviously, but they
basically, if you treat them ina unique way, with particular
(30:55):
ratios rock minerals,fertilization, different compost
mixtures, whether you practicea no-till regenerative farming
all those things have a prettyquick reaction.
In regards to cacti, a lot ofthem could either be very slow
growing or very fast growing.
Within the year you can doubleup in size.
So they're very responsive towhat it is that you're feeding
(31:18):
the soil.
So a lot of what I learnedabout rock minerals came from
having to feed my cacti,basically because I could see an
immediate reaction.
But if I feed it on a Monday by, I say, the following Thursday
or the week after, you'll find aunique amount of growth.
(31:40):
It could be fractional,probably about a few inches, if
you're monitoring it closely.
But in regards to somethingthat's known as a slow grower,
it's tremendous and to see thevigor and the health.
So, rock minerals for youraudience.
I would highly encourage all ofyou to really look into it
because there's especially forthose who want to practice a
(32:00):
regenerative farming.
I find things like rock mineralcover crops utilizing herbal
teas as well, compost teas likenettles yeah, nettles is a
favorite of ours.
So I highly highly recommendeverybody get on the rock
(32:22):
minerals.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Yeah, it's something I'll have to look into a bit
more because, as I say, somepeople that I know that grow for
shows and so on.
They swear by it.
So it was obviously somethingthat they give their plans
everything to try and win thecompetition.
So there's obviously something,something good there.
Just to go back to the kits fora second so they're coming in a
mesh bag, you slit it open, youwater are sprayed regularly not
(32:48):
water regularly sprayedregularly.
Do you sit it on some kind of atray or what's?
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Yeah, you could.
Yeah, just to absorb anyresidue water, just put it on a
plate or something simple.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah, you're going to get one flush of crop from that
, or?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
you can get up to three flushes, yeah, so once you
harvest the first flush, youwill rehydrate the block, put it
in a big bowl of waterovernight and then you just
leave it back and do the processagain.
Just missed it about threetimes a day.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
And roughly between each flush.
You're looking at a week, areyou?
Speaker 2 (33:24):
It gets longer after each flush, but you just have to
have patience.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
It's not dead.
So a couple of weeks, so youget a couple of flushes and you
definitely get two flushes.
And what kind of harvest areyou talking about?
So you know 10 good pieces ofmushrooms.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
You could get at least a quarter of a kilogram.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Well, yeah, so at least 250 grams.
You know it's in regards to theoysters.
They come out as a nice,beautiful bloom.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
It's quite big.
It's about like you can growlike three times the size of the
actual block.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Wow, and you're doing your kits in three different
farms, are you or so?
Speaker 2 (34:06):
oysters.
You have three oysters, and alion's mane and a female oyster.
Yeah, we're good.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Yeah, we're still working to master the other
unique types of oyster mushroomsin order to present them as a
girl kit as well, but those Ifound to be quite susceptible to
temperature change, more sothan the one we offer now.
So, in regards to, like, pinkoyster, golden oyster and other
(34:36):
unique forms of oyster mushrooms, those are very responsive to
temperature change, whetherpositive or negative.
So because of that and wehaven't mastered it quite yet we
wouldn't offer those particularones in girl kits, but it's
something that will be on thehorizon.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Yeah, for the next couple of years.
Obviously, mushrooms, andparticularly the medicinal side
of mushrooms, is obviously ahuge growth area and, as you
said, there's massive researchnow starting to back up the
claims.
Where do you see Gehlig fungoifargo on over the next couple of
years?
What's the wish that?
(35:13):
I suppose the plan.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, the plan is to expand.
Currently, we're at CaloFarmers Market every week.
We provide mushrooms to a newrestaurant in Cookehine, higgs
Field.
Great guy Connor there he's thechef.
Yeah, so just we'd love to getup to Dublin, be in America.
(35:38):
Up there, we sell online.
We sell all our medicinalproducts online, which is great,
so we're shipping them acrossthe country.
Yeah, get into a few morerestaurants, have a few fast
food orders.
Yeah, have fun with it.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Yeah, a lot of it now at this moment is just getting
people familiar with the brandand educating people on the
potential of these mushrooms.
As you mentioned before foryourself that the mushrooms that
kind of put this whole thing onyour scope was lion's mane, and
(36:16):
we find that a lot of the folksat our local farmers market are
the same.
They either heard about lion'smane through TikTok or through
Instagram or somewhere on theinternet, or a friend, a family
member, somebody had mentionedit to them.
So once they come acrossourselves and they see the
(36:38):
products that we offer in therange and they can actually see
a fresh lion's mane presented infront of them, because we sell
them also fresh for chefs andfor at home cooks.
So for someone to just maybethe closest you've ever gotten
to a lion's mane would have beenGoogle, a Google image search.
Now you're actually standing infront of one and we encourage
(37:00):
everyone to be familiar with it,to look at it, to touch it if
you like.
So a lot of it is based on justgetting the education portion
right and getting peoplecomfortable with knowing how to
consume that mushroom.
Our suggested means of dose foreither it be a liquid or
(37:23):
brewing your own tea with ourpowders.
So that's been the fun part ofit.
It's, in this beginning stagefor us as the educational
portion of actually getting thischat with folks If they're
willing to give us a good fiveminutes or 10 minutes of their
time.
We're basically hosting apodcast there at our mushroom
(37:45):
stall every weekend.
So it's a beautiful thing, youknow, because most Carlovians,
and even folks that come fromdifferent parts of the country
as well, we've had folks come infrom Galway, from Cork, from
Dublin, from the UK, some folksfrom the States, whether they be
just visiting or they heardabout us and they wanted to come
(38:07):
by and actually come check itout.
So it's been a lovely thingjust getting to see people's
reaction.
And then, obviously, the diehards, as I like to call them,
the folks that come in everyweekend to buy their fresh
mushroom or to buy a new supplyof their powders or their
(38:28):
liquids and just to hear theirreaction and how they've been
benefiting from it.
you know it's a beautiful thing.
It's more than we could haveever asked for.
You know, it's one thing thatyou can feel it amongst yourself
, but to really see it workingin real time and its reaction to
people in the field you knowit's a big nerd like ourselves
(38:52):
it's a great way for us toconduct live action research.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Yeah, it gives you a good feeling that what you're
doing is having an effect andhaving the effect that you want.
It was a question I was goingto ask and you started to touch
on it a little bit.
You're going to Kerala's KeralaFarmers Market now.
For how long?
Speaker 2 (39:12):
We've been there for almost a year now, right.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
So over that period of time, obviously not in
specific, but what are yourcustomers saying?
Repeat customers in terms ofmedicinal benefits.
You know what are you seeingpeople coming back and saying
this has happened or that hashappened.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Yeah, so, rashi, definitely the lowered blood
pressure and less stress,improved sleep that would be
specific for Rashi.
Yeah, we have a lot of folksthat are under a bone
chemotherapy or have donerecently and that they come in
(39:49):
for a turkey tail.
That's quite sought after.
He's main for mental clarity.
A lot of parents, mental fog,people that are doing exams and
working offices and stuff likebehind a computer all day.
That's really strenuous on yourbrain, yeah.
So I mean, I have one customerand she's doing a master's in
(40:15):
cyber therapy and she justswears by it.
We have a mix of the three andshe's just like every time I get
a test result back, I'm likethese mushrooms, so like there's
so many different stories andit's kind of hard to believe for
this right there in your face.
And these people are just sohappy and we're just happy to be
(40:36):
able to give them a really highquality product you can't find.
Really, we're probably the onlypeople in Ireland that grow and
produce it all ourselves.
Like you said, there's a lot ofmushroom products out there.
They're not grown in Ireland.
We have to be really consciousabout particularly Chinese grown
(41:00):
mushrooms because the pollutionlevel is so high.
These mushrooms absorb a lot ofthe toxins that are in the air
and in the ground.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
Particularly heavy metals.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
So that's something to keep in mind.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
Yeah, that's one thing that we like to reiterate
to people, because we emphasizeso much on the background and
educational portion of it.
I like to remind folks, whetheryou purchase anything for
months or not, the importantthing is that you ask these
questions.
It's like where were thesemushrooms grown?
(41:34):
Where were they sourced from?
Is there a transparency there?
Can that brand that claims tobe an American brand
wholeheartedly claim thatthey're where mushrooms are
American produced or Irishproduced or what have you?
(41:54):
Some place at least that has aknown track record for
environmental protection, wherethere's a chain of awareness and
a chain of command in terms ofknowing what can and can't go
into these fruit bodies?
Is there a certain analysisthat have been done on it, as
(42:15):
Eilish had pointed before that?
The Asian market.
Unfortunately, that's one ofthe places where you could get
bulk amounts of it at a fractionof a price that you'd find if
you were to get purely Irishgrown, for instance.
But it comes at a cost becausethere's already independent lab
(42:37):
research.
There's a crowd in Italy thathave done recent research I see
it as recent as this year wherethey've tested about 10 of the
most popular mushroom brands andthey noticed that at least 70%
(42:58):
of them didn't have themushrooms that were advertised.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Or the actual mushroom fruit body.
So there's a lot ofmisconception about mycelium and
mycelium have a highermedicinal content, so a lot of
mushroom powders in the marketwould be a grain and the
mycelium.
So essentially you're gettinglike 78% rice but a mushroom
(43:23):
mycelium.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
It's not the same as a mushroom powder.
That has been.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
It's not the actual, even mushroom.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Okay, it's just the mycelium, yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
I feel like that's a topic for another day.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
It's a topic for another day.
Yeah, right, but it is truethat and to go back to my
situation, where I was lookingat Lion's man and you see online
there's any amount of sourcesof it you really do not have any
clue what you're getting inthat talk.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
They don't tell you where it's grown.
Very rarely they'll tell youwhere it's grown or if it's
actual mushroom fruit bodies.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
Yeah, that's along the lines of being vigilant in
terms of looking at all labels.
When you're going to a shop ora health shop or any place where
you're going to consumesomething, I think it'd be
beneficial for the person toreally take the extra time to at
least go and scan over thelabel, look at the way things
(44:23):
are worded.
That's one thing that reallyput that into our scope as well
was when we wanted to.
There's certain mushrooms thatwe can't cultivate that we
really enjoy.
One of my favorite ones wouldbe chaga.
Now, chaga typically grows onbirch trees living birch trees
(44:44):
Now you can definitely find itout in the wild if you know what
it looks like, but the problemwith it is because we can't
cultivate it indoors and in ourfarm.
It's something that we reallyhad to be diligent about
sourcing it from high qualityproducers and then had forged it
responsibly, someone whoprocessed it responsibly, and
(45:07):
that takes a bit of homework,which some folks do not like
homework I could understand thatbut it's worth the effort
because at least you know thatyou're not doing more harm than
you are.
Good Because if you're sourcingsomething that comes from a
place that has a long history ofheavy manufacturing and all the
(45:28):
exhaust goes right to theatmosphere.
You know as well as I do whatgoes up must come down.
So all those toxins and heavymetals that are in the
atmosphere are going to findtheir way into the soil, can be
taken right up into the fruitbody.
And if you're even given thefruit body, as Eilish had
mentioned, because most brandstend to utilize mycelium,
(45:50):
because it's far easier tocreate mycelium than it is to
create the fruit body and it'sfar more profitable by expanding
on just mycelium basedsupplements and then just
pumping that out in a factory,because mycelium and if you have
(46:12):
a really good mycelium based tostart with, when you grow it
from beginning to end, it couldtake maybe, I say, two weeks
tops.
So if you're doing that on amass scale, you can pump out a
lot of stuff.
And if people aren't too awareabout the differences between
whole fruit and just myceliumbased supplements, then they're
(46:39):
throwing their money to the wind.
They're hard on money andthey're not quite aware of the
differences between somethingthat's time tested, which would
be the fruit bodies, like inregards to Rashi, that has over
a millennia of documented use inAyurvedic and Chinese medicines
.
(46:59):
Turkey Tail, as Eilish mentionedbefore, that's one of the most
studied mushrooms in clinicaltrials in regards to the immune
system and fighting cancer cellsand tumors.
But scientists will extract asynthesized version from the
actual fruit body of a TurkeyTail and then things like lion's
(47:19):
mane.
Like all of our ancestors whohave been utilizing these
mushrooms as a source ofnutrition or just a source of
food, as far as I know, none ofthem were digging into the
ground just to source themycelium.
They were getting the fruitbody from the dead tree or the
ground or wherever.
(47:40):
The mycelium mat.
I'm certain it has its ownnutritional values, of course,
but when you're comparing themto the fruit body it's a tough
comparison really.
So that's our life's model isproducing whole fruit byproducts
(48:02):
.
So whether it be the powders orliquids, those are always going
to be 100% whole fruit.
And then for the fresh stuff,obviously it's going to be whole
fruit, because we just can'tsit there with just a big mat of
mycelium and expect people toknow what to do with that it's
really interesting.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
As I say, we've sort of got around a lot of topics
here and while in some ways it'snot gardening as such but I
think for listeners in thepodcast, a lot of them are
growing their own food the thingwith mushrooms is that you can
grow it all year round.
That's a huge advantage to havesomething that you can harvest
(48:45):
all year round from the growkits.
I know you guys have websites.
Maybe tell people where theycan find you.
I know you're doing the CarlOak Farmers Market on Instagram,
I think, so maybe telleverybody where they can find
you, where they can check outGaelic Fungi Farms.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yeah, so it's gaelicfungifarmsie.
We're on Instagram as GaelicFungi Farms.
You can hit us an email ifyou've got any questions about
any of the products, or come bySaturday mornings at the
exchange in Carlotown.
Speaker 1 (49:16):
Brilliant, as I say, it's been a really interesting
chat.
We've gone around the topics.
We've had the dog entering theroom a couple of times to say
hello, but it's been fascinating.
And I suppose Fungi issomething that gardeners are
well aware of, but I'm not surethat we've.
You know, this level ofexpertise and knowledge is
(49:38):
something that's great tointroduce into.
So, Eilish and Michael, thankyou very much for coming on.
Master McGarrett and podcast.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
Thank you so much, john.
Thank you John.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
So that's been this week's episode.
A huge thanks to the guys forcoming on.
It's a really interesting chat.
As I say, I've come acrossGaelic Fungi Farm only recently
and the products and, as I say,I have been doing a good bit of
research on Linesman of late.
So, yeah, really interesting.
The grow kits are reallyinteresting.
You know, as I say, somethingthat you can have growing all
(50:10):
year round and maybe as anadditional to your veg and fruit
gardens outside.
I think the grow kits will be anice addition.
So, really interesting chat.
As I say, we've gone off topica little bit this week, but it's
a really interesting chat andsomething that I think we can
all learn from.
So that's been this week'sepisode.
Thanks for listening.
Until the next time, happygardening, bye.
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