The ‘lab’ is where we have spent most of our time getting our feet wet over our first year as mushroom spawn farmers! This is where we culture mushroom mycelium and then transfer it to growing substrates to fruit! Our lab consists of three main components: 1) two pressure cookers to sterilize our tools, equipment and growth substrates, 2) a laminar flow hood to create a sterilized work area to transfer mycelium between substrates, and 3) a lab fridge to store our back up cultures. Over our first year we have been temporarily converting Meghan’s kitchen at the farm into our lab on a weekly basis but have decided to give ourselves a 1st year anniversary present and build a permanent lab in one of the out buildings on the farm. Yipppeee! Kwesi, Meghan’s husband has started the transition of the storage room into the lab. So far he has cleaned out the room (a huge job!), insulated the walls and upgraded the electrical power. Next steps … check in with us in a couple of weeks and we will let you know how it is going!
