Ken Litchfield

 
On Saturday and Sunday, May 4th and 5th, from 10am to 7pm, at Roaring Camp in Felton, CA, Far West Fungi will be hosting their first Santa Cruz Mountain Mushroom Festival.   
You can find out about all the details at the festival Web site - scmmfest.com
 
The Mycological Society of San Francisco will have its society information booth there along with a mushroom paper-making DIY booth supervised by MSSFs Enrique Sanchez. This will be the last big bay area Mushroom Festival of the season, and everyone interested in any aspect of fungi is encouraged to attend.
 
Up until the Covid shutdowns hit, MSSFs Cultivation Committee was still hosting the Far West Fungi Farm Field Trip Tour & Potluck BBQ, one of the biggest mushroom events in northern California. It was held twice a year at the Far West Fungi Farm in Moss Landing. Each fall on the Sunday before Halloween and again in the Spring the Sunday before the Spring Equinox, over 500 people would converge at the farm for a personal tour, then enjoy a giant mushroom themed potluck.  It would then be followed up by a raid of the farm's giant mushroom growing block recycle pile. The price of admission each time was simply a potluck dish.
 
About 20 years ago I began the FWFFFTPLBBQ as a field trip with my first Mushroom Cultivation class for Community College credit. It was later added to MSSFs Cultivation activities.
 
All the students in class plus their family and friends were invited to attend, so we had around 40-50 folks on the first trip. It was so popular with the class and community and the Garrone family, John and Tobie (owners of Far West Fungi and long time MSSF members) with their sons and extended families gradually being added. They later added large BBQ grills of their own cooking up organically raised mushrooms plus other goodies brought by attendees. We decided to repeat it in the spring and then twice per year after that. It quickly grew in popularity with invites going out to like-minded groups and individuals like Rare Fruit Growers of California, permaculture groups, horticulture groups, culinary groups, and fermentation groups. They were introduced to the easiest ways to incorporate mushrooms into their own home gardens by mushroom harvesting all season long using the just once harvested, not fully spent, mushroom blocks gathered from the farm's recycle pile. The farm’s processes require that they take only one harvest from each mushroom grow block and then replace the entire production with new blocks.
 
Each time we broke another hundred, from100, 200, 300, 400 we re-evaluated with the Garrones on the logistics of handling that many people at their farm...especially the health and safety of handling and serving over 500 potluck dishes at the last several events.
 
With all that event experience under their belts, Far West Fungi is now providing their first Santa Cruz Mountain Mushroom Festival to the mushroom community.
 
Hope to see y’all there. 
Thanks Ken