Grow Your Own Mushrooms

Are you a chef, home cook, do-it-yourselfer, nature lover, science lover, or simply curious to know more about the benefits of keeping your own mushrooms and what these fascinating organisms can teach us? Learn to grow your own mushroom gardens! The Piedmont of NC has a wonderful climate for cultivating many types of nutritional, medicinal, and delicious mushrooms.

A great experience for kids too! Young and old love getting their hands dirty engaging with and understanding their food, medicine, and the wonder of the natural world.

Every program participant will receive an inoculated shiitake log! And walk away empowered to cultivate and continue their learning.

Registration

Price is $40 and includes an inoculated shiitake log!

About the Instructors

Dave Pollmiller & Meg Toben share a mutual admiration for the magic of fungi. Both enjoy wild harvesting and cultivating mycelium to feed the people! Meg's mushroom gardens stay in the forest, but Dave's have been known to pop up in places like the Community Kitchen, Eco-Institute office, and even pairs of his old gardening jeans!

As the Eco-Institute Garden Manager, Dave Pollmiller has a passionate love for all things outdoors and is continuously learning how to deepen his connection to the land, himself and his community in meaningful ways. He has become the human mycelium, creating webs of connection that make the Eco-Institute even more productive- from its garden and mushroom cultivation to local community cultivation, to its exploration of other impact centers in the world network pulsing with the same vision.

Meg and her husband, Tim Toben, co-created the Eco-Institute at Pickards Mountain as a sanctuary for nature connection, renewal, and healing the human-Earth relationship. Meg has twenty years of experience as an environmental educator, and ten as an executive director, during which time she has learned useful techniques for cultivating balance while keeping a holistic level of awareness. Meg knows and loves the land here deeply, having raised her family on it for the past twelve years. In 2015, Meg was honored with the Piedmont Environmental Leadership Award. Her love for art, ritual, Earth, and humanity inspire her to offer healing space of deep renewal to all who are working to heal our world.