Scott Button with Mountain Valley Mushrooms checks in on some shiitakes in the making.

Scott Button with Mountain Valley Mushrooms checks in on some shiitakes in the making.

“Everyone knows me as the mushroom man,” Tye smiled as I settled myself on a cooler in his tent last Friday.

“That’s true, Tye,” I responded. “But does everyone know you were also the first Teton Valley Farmer’s Market Manager? I didn’t know that ‘til I interviewed you at one of our July Markets during The Summer of Covid, 2020. Might you refresh my mind…?”

“My first memories date back to 2001. Jed of Cosmic Apple was leasing Steve Liebler’s farm, the Painted Apple, in Victor. He sold his produce under the name ‘Cosmic Apple’ from his VW Westphalia minibus which he parked outside Barrels & Bins. And we would sometimes join him.

“Several years later, Georgie Stanley, Janet Reese, Al Young, myself, and a couple of others held the first Teton Valley Farmer’s Market in Driggs. The Market was held at the pagoda outside the K. Dunn building near the old bowling alley. The following year, we moved down to where Fred Mugler’s Mountaineer Outfitters had burned down. That was before the Colter Building was built so there was ample room for us in what’s now Mugler Plaza. We were there for two years before moving to the City Plaza. The City had purchased that space and the building from Broulim’s in the early 2000s.

“I was drafted to be the first Farmer’s Market Manager. That was probably 2004-2005. At the time, we only had five or six vendors, and we set up along the Main Street sidewalk to attract customers. Tents attracted customers as the Plaza itself didn’t look as inviting as it does now. Thinking about last week’s ‘big blow’, I remember one windy Market when all our tents blew into Main Street!

“In the beginning, our Markets were held on Thursdays as the majority of our vendors attended the popular Saturday Farmer’s Market in Jackson and they felt they needed the day in between to get ready. Eventually, our Market Day was moved to Friday mornings to catch visitors to the Valley as well as the locals.”

“Thanks for refreshing me on the early Market, Tye. Now, did I hear you correctly when you said recently you were producing shiitake mushrooms for Market this year?”

“Yes! I have some getting ready right now. In 2011, I was growing them and other varieties of mushrooms on my farm when a fire burned up the mushroom production building where my farm partner, Scott Button and I had built the steamer. Since then, I haven’t grown any — until now. They should be ready real soon.”

“Oh, my. I’d forgotten about the fire you had. What did you do following that unfortunate event, Tye?”

“For a couple of years, I worked with Kendall on his Larks Meadow Farm making cheeses. Kendall has a degree in microbiology, so he has a solid background for cheesemaking. And he has a herd of milk sheep to provide the basic ingredient for his cheeses. But mushrooms are my thing, so I rebuilt and began again.

“Eighty to ninety percent of Mountain Valley Mushrooms’ growing materials are organic and locally-sourced. In our lab, we make the spawn – mycelium (fungal spore) growing on organic rye seeds. We make our growing blocks from locally-sourced barley straw that we chip. When we have two hundred pounds of chipped straw, we mix it up with a substrate of wood chips we get from nearby friends (for shiitake, we use just hard wood chips). This mixture then gets soaked for 24 hours after which we drain it overnight before stuffing it into special mushroom-growing bags that we buy. These bags are autoclavable, so they can withstand high temperatures. They also come with a patch to allow air exchange – the spawn give off CO2. We then put the stuffed bags into our steamer to be ‘cooked’ in steam at 200 degrees F for ten to twelve hours to kill any mold or bacteria. The ‘cooked’ bags – or blocks — are cooled overnight. The next day, we trickle the mushroom spawn into the mixture through the tops of the bags prior to sealing them closed. Then we move the blocks to an old Meadowgold dairy truck we keep heated at 70 degrees F. For the pearl mushrooms I brought today, it takes three to four weeks to incubate and fully colonize the blocks. For shiitake, it takes about 14 weeks.

“From there we move the blocks to our grow room we keep at 60-65 degrees F and 90% humidity. We stab holes into the blocks with arrowheads, and the fruiting bodies – the mushrooms we so enjoy – push up through those opening as they sense the O2 in the ambient air. It takes only a couple of days for a crop to appear, and in another couple of days, they’re done. We get three or four flushes of mushrooms from each 20-pound block.”

“Impressive, Tye. I never knew what went in to ‘making’ a mushroom.”

As we were talking, I had been aware of a number of customers coming up to Tye’s tent looking for his fresh and delicious mushrooms. When they saw his “Sold Out” sign, crestfallen faces replaced happily expectant ones. Tye always responded to them that he would be back next week with more, reminding them to come early. I was also aware none of the customers batted an eye at the price he had posted for his mushrooms. Perhaps they knew what goes in to producing such a fine delicacy.

Thank you, Tye, for your wonderful mushrooms AND for helping spearhead our Teton Valley Farmer’s Market!

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