Don’t Try It ’til You’ve Nocced It By Maria Johnson

Don’t Try It ’til You’ve Nocced It

Growing your own mushrooms gets a boost in Saxapahaw

By M a R i a JoHnson

Wear ing the k nit headband and sun-k issed cheek s of an avid outdoorswoman, Jeanne Ver recchio traces her mushroom obsession to the COV ID pandemic.

L ast summer, she spent some of her dow n time watching the Netfli x documentar y Fantastic Fung i.

“I said, ‘T his is what I want to do. I want to lear n about mushrooms,’” says Ver recchio, her Brook lyn accent underlining her ear nestness.

She slipped dow n the f ungal slope quick ly. She read up on edible mushrooms. A f r iend up the street gave her a g rowing k it for Chr istmas.

In Januar y, when Ver recchio retired f rom her job as an oncolog y nurse at Duke Universit y Medical Center, her colleag ues threw her a going-away par t y in

a conference room. T hey hung paper mushrooms f rom the ceiling. T hey gave her an accent pillow covered with a char ming mushroom pr int. T hey decorated her cake with little plastic mushrooms. T hey presented her with gold-plated mushroom ear r ings.

Wait. T here’s more. In Febr uar y, Ver recchio took a mushroom forag ing class led by an exper t in Durham. A nd now, on a nippy Sat urday mor ning, Ver recchio and 15 others stand in a semicircle in a bar nyard at Haw R iver Mushrooms, in the A lamance Count y communit y of Sa xapahaw, using batter y-powered dr ills to poke holes in logs perched on sawhorses in f ront of them. In a few minutes, the st udents will beg in noccing — shor t for inoculating and pronounced “k nock ing” — their logs with cult ures that will g row into mushrooms. (In the first version, I spelled the word ‘noccing, but I nosed around on the inter net and apparently in mushroom circles the slang word is spelled noccing, with no apostrophes and an extra “c”, so I g uess we should spell it that way. If we were spelling a tr ue contraction of inoculating, it would have one “c” and t wo apostrophes — `noc`ing — and that seems ungainly.)

Prepandemic, more than 20 0 people a year sig ned up for Haw R iver’s noccing classes, which were desig ned to make par ticipants more f ung i f r iendly.

“We want mushroom gardening to be as common as tomato gardening in Nor th Carolina,” says L aura Stewar t, who ow ns the far m with husband Ches. “Mushrooms g row n on logs are about the most laid-back product you can add to your garden. T hey’re ver y resilient.”

COV ID halted the noccing classes in 2020 and 2021, and the ter m inoculation took on a dif ferent meaning. But earlier this year, as the pandemic subsided in this countr y, the Stewar ts and their employees resumed their noccing events, as well as mushroom forag ing on the proper t y.

Par ticipants popped out like shiitakes af ter a rain.

Stewar t attr ibutes the burgeoning interest in mushrooms to several longstanding trends:

A concer n about the env ironment and a push for sustainable ag r icult ure. A g row ing number of vegetar ians in this countr y. A n interest in the medicina l qua lities of mushrooms, especia lly as anticancer agents.

T he pandemic helped the f ungal cause too.

Fantastic Fung i, the Netfli x doc, sparked a wave of interest, she says. A nd some people star ted g rowing mushrooms as a socially distanced hobby. Count 14-year- old A lex McPherson in their number.

“I looked it up dur ing quarantine,” she says. “I was bored, so I thought, ‘Mushrooms. Sure, why not?’”

Her father, Heath, followed her lead. T hey ordered a g rowing k it and mar veled at the f ung i that sprouted in Heath ’s of fice in their nor th R aleigh home.

“It’s k ind of l i ke g row ing flowers,” says He at h. “T here’s a n aest het ic to it. T he c olors, t he tex t ures. It helps us to t r y d if ferent fo o ds, to o.”

A lex enjoys mushrooms with pasta. “A ny thing pasta,” she says.

For noccer Adam Dovenitz, who lives in Durham, pizza is a power f ul motivator. He once g rew blue oyster mushrooms and put them on a pie.

“T hey were ama zing,” says Dovenitz, long a devotee of edible f ung i. W hen he was 10, he exper imented with inoculating logs and nearly caught his parents’ home on fire while melting wa x to plug the nocc holes.

“I lear ned you don’t put out a wa x fire with water,” Dovenitz says, throwing his hands apar t with an explosive “PSHHHH!” to communicate the idea of “wa x fire.”

“Now, I act ually have good instr uction.”

A nd how. T he Stewar ts have been f ull-time mushroom far mers for five years.

In March 2020, they moved to a 17-acre spread where they expanded their operation to several outbuildings, including an old railroad shipping container, t wo repur posed tr uck trailers and a new bar n.

T heir yield: 30 tons of mushrooms a year.

More than half the haul goes to 10 far mers markets in the Tr iangle and Tr iad.

Restaurants get the next biggest slice, about si x tons.

T he rest go es to subscr ib ers of C ommun it y Supp or te d A g r ic u lt ure.

Er ic Dragone and Susan Pizzuti of Car rboro buy the Stewar ts’

mushrooms at their local far mers’ market. T hey’re fond of the lion’s mane var iet y, which has a flavor similar to crab meat.

“She’s replaced most of the meat in our diets with mushrooms.” says Dragone, nodding proudly to Pizzuti.

Hoping to g row their ow n f ung i, the young couple have sig ned up for the noccing class, which beg ins with a tour of the far m.

Stepping around cats, chickens and an Australian shepherdL abrador retr iever mi x named Isaac, st udents lear n the basics of mushroom cultivation.

T hey see how the Stewar ts make their ow n g rowing medium f rom locally sourced oak sawdust and soybean hulls. T hey hear how the Stewar ts pasteur ize and inoculate the medium with a rainbow of oyster mushrooms, cinnamon caps, black pearls, lion’s mane, shittake and the medicinal reishi.

T hey step into the ear thy air of a trailer and witness how the cultures colonize — in plastic bags on racks made f rom metal pipes — into masses of white mycelium, the brainlike motherships of mushrooms.

St udent s t hen d ip t heir fe et into a n a nt i-f unga l bat h a nd enter m ist y g row ro oms, where sc ores of pla st ic bags have b e en sl it op en to reve a l t he f r u it of t he myc el ium — plump but tons, domes, r uf fles a nd fi ngers of mushro oms in lusc ious shades of blue, g r ay, r ust , gold a nd cre a m.

“T hey’re beauuuuutif ul,” coos Ver recchio, the for mer nurse.

Outside, af ter break ing for a cup of soup made f rom lemon g rass, lion’s mane and coconut milk — “Do you have, like, si x more gallons of this soup? It’s incredible,” says Dragone — L aura Stewar t preps her charges with a couple of nocc talk s.

T he L og Talk: You will select four logs of f reshly cut oak, which is the best host for mushrooms. Other t ypes of logs will work, but don’t use dead wood because it’s already g rowing st uf f.

T he Spaw n Talk: You will receive cups of cult ures — mashed mycelium — and an inoculator resembling a big brass syr inge to inject the cult ures into the log holes. You will have a choice of blue oyster, shiitake and lion’s mane mushrooms, but jab each log with only one var iet y of mushroom. More than one cult ure g uarantees f ungal war.

T he pupils get to noccing.

A mber Brothers who r uns Elijah ’s Far m in the Rougement, hopes to add more mushrooms to the produce she sells at the Black Far mers’ Market in Durham, at another market in Henderson, and — one day, she hopes — at a market- on-wheels that she will dr ive into poor communities.

“I want to teach low-income k ids about sustainabilit y,” she says.

A lready, she has conver ted par t of her home into a mushroom g rowing center.

“My living room is covered in plastic, with vents out the windows,” she says.

L or i and Dan Seiler of Burling ton are interested in the marketabilit y of mushrooms as well.

Prepa ndem ic , t hey enjoye d a sp e c ia l a l l-mushro om d inner pre pare d by a chef in R a leig h. W hen COV ID d inge d t heir ja n itor ia l business, t hey war me d to t he ide a of g row ing mushro oms a s a side hust le on t heir five - acre plac e.

“We said, ‘W hy don’t we tr y it?’ We have trees that need to be cut,” says L or i.

To that end, they’re inoculating their logs with shiitake, lion’s mane and blue oyster cultures and daubing the holes with paraf fin, while gently shooing a tabby cat who keeps jumping aboard to investigate.

L aura wraps up the class with a final address.

T he Care Talk: Don’t let your logs get dir t y. Don’t let them dr y out. Set them in a shady spot out of the wind. Don’t wor r y if the paraf fin peels of f your nocc holes. A nd don’t wor r y about the my th that you should seal the ends of the logs, too.

“I t h in k t hat’s a c onspir ac y spre ad by Big Wa x,” L aur a says w it h a g r in, her blond p ony t a i l prot r ud ing f rom t he back side of her t r ucker hat.

Within a year, she advises, you should see mushrooms g rowing f rom your logs. Check them f requently.

“It’s a good exper ience to go out af ter a rainy day and realize, ‘Oh, I just made myself a meal,’” she says.

If your nocc is a bust, she counsels, contact the far m. She’ll g ive you another log.

“I want you to be successf ul,” says L aura, who, like her crop, is prett y laid back.

“A ny thing with far ming pushes you into more systems think ing,” she says. “You realize, ‘OK, ever y thing is related,’ and if that’s your think ing f rom the get-go, it makes you a little more empathetic.” OH

L ear n more at hawr iver mushrooms.com.