It’s with a lot of excitement and some bittersweet feelings that I announce that Ashby Fungi has been sold! The farm will still be a woman-owned, home-based business growing the same varieties and selling at the same markets, just under new management.
I want to take this opportunity to introduce the future mushroom farmer, Amanda Janney, in her own words:
Hey! I’m Amanda. Everywhere I go, I pick things up. From heart-shaped rocks from the ground, to languages of other cultures, to new skills. And without fully understanding it until a few years ago, I’ve been developing a deep fascination and love for mushrooms all my life.
From a nine-year-old strangely filling my salad bar plate with piles of raw button mushrooms, to a vegetarian teenager looking for anything more flavorful than criminis or portobellos, to a college kid mad that my roommates threw away my first ever oyster mushroom grow kit, to a Portland resident discovering the magical bounty of foragable, edible fungi.
I guess you can say that the mycelium has “colonized” me… sorta by chance. When I started spending time helping out on mushroom farms, I realized that there was a way to bring together my love of local food systems, growing food, cooking…and mushrooms. So I picked up all of the books on cultivating gourmet mushrooms. And then I discovered that Ashby Fungi was for sale…as exciting a discovery as a matsutake in Mendocino, or a new lion’s mane confit recipe!
So here we are! I’m a mushroom farmer. I look forward to meeting you, sharing cooking tips & recipes, and providing the freshest, most delicious and nutritious gourmet mushrooms I can produce. And aside from chatting about mushrooms, I’m always happy to exchange notes on hiking and hot springs spots, motorcycles, punk rock, gardening, and DIY home projects.