What To Do In A Small Town

Back in 1976, I was a student at the University of California at Davis studying agricultural sciences.  I had visions of running a landscaping business though I had no knowledge of what I needed to do to start it.  Through my studies, I always avoided studying business and went to as many other classes as I could. Then I read my graduation requirements.  I had to take a class in marketing.  Disappointed as I was, I took it and it turned out to be one of the best classes I ever took and gave me knowledge that lead up to my project this weekend.

The professor required us all to form teams and to write a marketing plan.  I didn't know anyone in that class of 400 students and was wandering around the hall looking for someone to connect with.

"Are you on a project?" a young lady asked.  No, I said.  She said her dad had invented something and she wanted a team to help her set up a marketing plan.  As she was the only person who asked me, I jumped at the chance.

Her dad was a professor at the university and had been doing research in growing mushrooms; specifically shitake mushrooms.  The only mushrooms I knew about were the button mushrooms my mom put in salads.  Picking wild mushrooms left me with chills worrying about poisoning myself.  Her dad was a charming and affable fellow who was long on research but had never sold anything.  I learned all about shitake mushrooms.

Apparently I had eaten some at a Chinese restaurant.  No one was able to grow them commercially and so they all had to be picked in the wild in China, dried and sent in bags around the world.  Good though they were, they weren't as good as fresh.  He explained how he and a fellow in Japan had come up with a process to grow them on sawdust.

We ended the class with a big party at his house with all the team members.  He fed us at least a dozen different mushrooms cooked in every way imaginable.  Years later, I saw home kits for growing them at home though I was not tempted to buy one.

Jump forward about 40 years to the present.  Nee has moved to Fang to be with me and she is looking for some way to bring in some income of her own.  While she was in Bangkok, she took a class on how to grow mushrooms.  I won't go into the details here now.  I will leave that for other blogs.  I will say that we were finally able to find a farm nearby and we spent a few hours there yesterday.

 We drove far out into the countryside to see rice being harvested and cows walking on the side of the road. After asking directions from several people we finally found this farm.  It is a cooperative farm with several growers sharing the labor and expense.  The facilities were all very low tech though they had been given much advice from a professor from a local university.  Shelves and buildings were made of locally grown bamboo.  Sawdust was shipped in from the south where they grow rubber. We were given a tour by one of the ladies working there.  It was a quiet and comfortable farm with thousands of these bags sitting on shelves like the ones I show here.

Mushroom barn with a roof of bamboo and leaves.  We were told the leaves last about three years.

 This is my interpretation of the mushroom shelving.  We bought 20 bags of two different mushrooms, though not shitake.  They do grow shitake there but we were told that they produce only once every three months.  We decided to try some others that are just as tasty and far more prolific.

I don't know if we will try to grow these for income.  We do have land we can develop.  Right now, though, I just want to learn how to do this and enjoy the fruits of our labor.