I interviewed Lynne Morgan at Farmers on the Square about Whistleberry Farm, the farm she and her husband run, in order to connect further with a local farmer that I have met a couple of times and learn more about fungiculture, one of my personal interests. I found it so interesting that the Morgan’s farm started as a hobby and has grown so much but that Lynne and her husband both still have full time jobs while managing the whole operation themselves. The amount of work they must put into the farm is impressive considering she herself considers the farm to be a full-time job in addition to their other work, and they have grown the business a lot despite this challenge. They started at their old house, where they wanted to grow something but lived in a forest, so mushrooms seemed like a good choice. From there, they expanded into beekeeping and had scaled up enough to start going to farmers markets. It was great to hear how important their base of loyal customers is, and Lynne mentioned that her and her husbands families have bother been so supportive. Since moving to their farm, they have expanded further by growing many kinds of produce. They grow mushrooms throughout the year, and I was surprised to learn that they even grow shiitake indoors despite shiitake being typically grown on logs and them having thousands of logs on their property for growing mushrooms. We had a short but very interesting conversation after the interview about specific growing practices for mushrooms that opened my eyes to the different approaches one can take.
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