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Ben Fortier, owner of Fungus Among Us, harvests a variety of mushrooms in his basement greenhouse, which he built himself. The greenhouse is designed to have the conditions of high humidity, special blue lights and a sterile environment so the mushrooms can best grow.
Ben Fortier, the owner of Fungus Among Us, harvests a king hydra mushroom in his basement greenhouse, which he designed and built himself.
Ben Fortier stands in the shade behind his Evansville home, looking like a spaceman.
The baggy, white coveralls he’s wearing obscure everything but eyes and nose, and gloved hands.
He and Kit Land — also outfitted in protective gear — are planting spores of mushrooms in bags of substrate. The substrate, high in protein and sugar, will feed the spores as they grow. Before long, they’ll be full-sized king oysters.
Fortier and Land seal the bags, and haul them inside. Still in coveralls, they take a U-turn past Fortier’s living room, and descend the stairs into the basement.
This is Fungus Among Us: mushroom farm incorporated.
Fortier started it as a side hobby in 2018, but went full-time in October. Land joined the team in early January.
Now, that basement churns out about 50-something pounds of mushrooms a week. In addition to oysters, it grows varieties including white button, shiitake, portobello, lions’ mane and cremini.
But Fungus Among Us mushrooms are grown organically using material sourced in-state — much of it recycled or second-hand, Fortier says. That cuts both waste and costs.
It’s a step toward more sustainable, affordable, locally grown produce, Fortier says. Especially in arid Wyoming, where fresh food is hard to come by.
To the uninitiated, the Fungus Among Us headquarters looks like any other unfinished basement — like storage space, namely.
Ben Fortier, the owner of Fungus Among Us, moves blocks planted with mushroom spores to the greenhouse in his basement where they will grow and sprout.
It sports a refrigerator, a sink, shelving in the back stacked with bins. Flattened cardboard boxes lean against the wall, and a few feet from that, there’s a black trash bag filled with who knows what.
But all that miscellany serves a purpose.
The cardboard goes into the mushrooms’ food. They can digest it for nutrients. The farm goes through about 200-300 pounds of cardboard a month.
The trash bag has wood ash in it, which Fortier uses to make mineral-rich water (as with plants, regular watering of mushrooms is necessary for a good harvest.)
Ingredients like wheat berries, straw wood, sawdust and compost also contribute the mushrooms’ food — all of it, from around Wyoming.
Soon, Fungus Among Us will be a carbon-negative business, meaning it’ll consume more waste than it produces.
That eye on resourcefulness is also why they plant the mushroom spores outside. A lot of mushroom farmers buy pressurized flow hoods to make sure the mushrooms aren’t exposed to contamination. But there’s no need for that here, says Fortier.
Oyster mushrooms grow in Ben Fortier's basement greenhouse, out of which he runs Fungus Among Us, a carbon negative, organic and locally owned small business. Fortier plans on expanding his business in the late spring.
“Wyoming air is so dry and desolate of any living organism, we can just go right outside in the backyard or right outside in the front,” he says.
The business of mushroom farming isn’t new, but it’s pretty new to the Equality State.
Wyoming doesn’t have any laws specific to mushroom farms, Fortier says. He’s currently working with state legislators to get some on the books.
The Oregon native, meanwhile, has been harvesting mushrooms since age 13.
“It’s always just kind of been part of my life,” he says. “And moving out here, there were so few options for mushrooms. It is mind boggling.”
Fortier walks over to the shelf, and opens a bin to reveal budding white buttons.
It is a weird science, mushroom cultivation. The buttons are really one organism, cloned over and over again, Fortier explains.
Naturally, every mushroom releases about 8 million spores — a random soup of competing genes. But if you grow a mushroom and like how it turns out, you can take a tissue sample of that mushroom and develop a pure culture. That way, you can refine its desirable traits, then grow that strain again and again.
It takes a couple years of trial and error to get a good variant, Fortier says.
“We’re working right now on a brown oyster in Wyoming that was found on a willow tree,” he says. If all goes well, the farm will soon carry a native mushroom.
Around the corner — still in the basement — is a small translucent tent, the size and shape of a backyard tool shed. A greenhouse.
The front opens to reveal carts loaded with big blocks of straw and cardboard, dotted with little forests of mushrooms. A narrow aisle in the middle allows space for one or two people to move between them.
Fortier designed the whole thing to be humidity- and temperature-controlled, and ventilated with air from outside. It also has special blue lights that help the mushrooms grow.
Mushrooms don’t grow in neat rows, like your standard crop. They grow in clumps, sometimes hanging off the sides of the blocks.
Fortier demonstrates to Lane how to harvest lions’ mane: gently twist them off, almost like a doorknob.
After harvest, they go in the refrigerator to get some of the excess moisture out. Then they’re ready for the store.
Right now, Fungus Among Us mushrooms are available at Gooseberry Creek in Casper, the Milk House Farmers’ Market in Mills, Big Hollow Food Co-op in Laramie and Freedom Foods in Sheridan. Products are also available for order at Eat Wyoming.
The business will move to a commercial space in late spring or early summer, Fortier says.
When that happens, they’ll be able to double the amount of produce grown every week. They hope to jump up to 300 to 400 pounds of mushrooms weekly within the next year-and-a-half.
The goal is to have a steady supply Wyomingites can bring home from the store whenever they want.
“That’s kind of what we’re geared towards, is bringing local produce at an affordable price,” Fortier says.
Ben Fortier, the owner of Fungus Among Us, harvests a variety of mushrooms in his basement greenhouse which he designed and built himself. The greenhouse is designed to have the conditions of high humidity, special blue lights and a sterile environment so the mushrooms can best grow.
Ben Fortier, the owner of Fungus Among Us, moves blocks planted with mushroom spores to the greenhouse in his basement where they will grow and sprout.
Oyster mushrooms grow in Ben Fortier's basement greenhouse out of which he runs Fungus Among Us, a carbon negative, organic and locally-owned small business. Fortier plans on expanding his business in the late spring.
Ben Fortier, the owner of Fungus Among Us, and Kit Land prepare inoculated mushroom blocks for growing in Fortier's basement greenhouse which he designed and built himself.
Ben Fortier works outside when moving the baby spores into potting bags because the wind circulation helps prevent the mushrooms from being contaminated.
Kit Land, an employee at Fungus Among Us, prepares to inoculated mushroom blocks by putting on full personal protective equipment because any bacteria from skin contact could infect and kill the mushrooms.
Ben Fortier and Kit Land work outside together to move baby spores into potting bags because the wind circulation helps prevent the mushrooms from being contaminated.
Kit Land, an employee at Fungus Among Us, learns from owner Ben Fortier about the process of growing mushrooms so Land can help take over operations while Fortier finishes up a final semester in school at the University of Wyoming.
Ben Fortier, the owner of Fungus Among Us, harvests a king hydra mushroom in his basement greenhouse which he designed and built himself.
Kit Land, an employee at Fungus Among Us, prepares to inoculated mushroom blocks by putting on full personal protective equipment because any bacteria from skin contact could infect and kill the mushrooms.
Organic oyster mushrooms grow in the back part of Ben Fortier's basement greenhouse.
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Ben Fortier, owner of Fungus Among Us, harvests a variety of mushrooms in his basement greenhouse, which he built himself. The greenhouse is designed to have the conditions of high humidity, special blue lights and a sterile environment so the mushrooms can best grow.
Ben Fortier, the owner of Fungus Among Us, moves blocks planted with mushroom spores to the greenhouse in his basement where they will grow and sprout.
Oyster mushrooms grow in Ben Fortier's basement greenhouse, out of which he runs Fungus Among Us, a carbon negative, organic and locally owned small business. Fortier plans on expanding his business in the late spring.
Ben Fortier, the owner of Fungus Among Us, harvests a king hydra mushroom in his basement greenhouse, which he designed and built himself.
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