Basil’s Fungi Farm
Growing mushrooms in the heart of Hastings
KAYLA POWER
If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to grow mushrooms in an urban setting, then read on, because this process is happening just down the road from you, right in the heart of Hastings! Welcome to Basil’s Fungi Farm.
Robbie the owner outside Basil’s
Basil’s Fungi Farm is run by Robbie and named after one of his favourite cats – Basil. The Farm is tucked away in The Yard in Hastings. Once you leave the yard and step inside through a curtain of plastic sheeting, you are immediately greeted by the cool damp air of the grow room. The room is filled with wonderfully shaped and coloured mushrooms from floor to ceiling. The Farm grows and sells a variety of gourmet mushrooms focusing particularly on Oyster, Lion’s Mane and Coral Tooth varieties. Basil’s supplies a range of local grocers and farm shops, including the St Leonards Grocery and J. Fountain & Sons and the Michelin Green star restaurant The Smallholding in Cranbrook.
On a recent visit to the Farm, Robbie walked us through the entirely hand-crafted enterprise. Firstly, Robbie makes all his own fruiting blocks from a mixture of sawdust, soy hull and water to make what looks like a compact bag of sawdust. Once mixed, these fruiting blocks are then sterilised with a handmade hot steam generator, removing any mould or yeast present, preparing them for the spores. Next, a home grown grain spawn is added to the now sterile fruiting box. Then, the mixture is stored in a heated room to incubate. During incubation, the spores grow into mycelium – the root system from which mushrooms bloom, which in turn grows and expands. Once it has grown enough to produce a crop of mushrooms, it is moved to the grow room. By the way, you know it’s ready when the whole bag that has started out brown has turned almost totally white from the mycelium growth! The grow room is the final destination for the production process and must be kept between 15 to 18 degrees, otherwise the mushrooms can be stunted and inconsistent in quality. This is where the magic happens. At this cooler temperature the mycelium blooms the mushrooms which are then gently plucked off the block, weighed, packaged and delivered to grocers and local restaurants and pubs to feature in some of your favourite dishes!
Photos: Robbie Kelly
Recently Robbie has been experimenting with creating local varieties of mushroom – by foraging and picking local mushrooms it’s been possible for him to clone and produce these at scale – local varieties include a native velvet shank mushroom and a blue oyster mushroom found in Alexandra Park! (featured in one of the photos). The whole process is not dissimilar to a fantastic chemistry lab with amazing and delicious results.
Robbie hopes to set up an online ordering system soon when you’ll be able to buy mushrooms ready to eat straight from the farm but for now you can experiment at home with a‘‘grow kit’ and literally grow your own.
If you would like to keep up with Basil’s Fungi Farm, check out their Instagram @basilsfungifarm
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. You can also support local journalism by becoming a friend of HIP. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.
Leave a Reply