Mushrooms are part of most meals at Tim Poeppel's house and he wants to bring his same excitement for fungi to people in Guelph with his indoor farmed mushrooms. It started as an experiment when his father-in-law had a log he was going to discard. Poeppel took it and tried to grow mushrooms from it but wasn't successful because the wood dried out, but he didn't give up.
Once he began growing successfully, he started his business Tato's Mushrooms in 2022 to bring unique mushrooms to people's tables. YouTube videos from mushroom farmers across the world helped him see the types of indoor setups there are.
Having a mushroom farm in his basement was a whole other beast. Humidity and temperature control are key. Monitoring for contamination and picking the mushrooms when they are ready means Poeppel can't take a vacation for longer than a night or two.
He is in the process of moving over his farm to another basement with more space. It should allow for larger production and will have a separate lab area. He still sells at the Guelph Farmers' Market and has recently expanded by selling online.
Source: guelphtoday.com