Dream Farm

Journal

INTRODUCING DREAM FARM MUSHROOMS….

March 1, 2022

Greetings from Dream Farm Mushrooms!

We are a new woman-owned mushroom farm and education project in Point Reyes, California.

We offer fresh and dried mushrooms for food and wellness, including lion’s mane and oyster, as well as “grow at home” mushroom kits, and mushroom products. We will soon be offering workshops on a variety of mushroom topics such as growing mushrooms at home and in the garden, making extracts, building soil, and cooking. Community events and a myco-artist-in-residence program are in the works!

  1. Dream Farm is driven by several INTERCONNECTED principles and goals:
    We believe food should be LOCAL. Local food is fresher, it requires less fuel and energy for transport, and causes less pollution. Local food builds community. And it’s nice to know your farmer. And speaking of “local”, part of our research includes culturing local mushroom strains from West Marin woodlands for use at the farm. This keeps the farm attuned to the local biosphere, and using strains already adapted to local conditions requires less energy and intervention in farming methods.
  2. Dream Farm uses an ECOLOGICALLY-BASED approach to growing mushrooms. Known as “Low Tech” mushroom cultivation, this approach leverages natural systems to the maximum extent possible to foster and nurture the right conditions for growing. Many mushrooms in the marketplace are grown indoors using industrial factory-farming methods that are very energy-intensive, in large part because they are artificially re-creating outdoor conditions. Our mushrooms are fruited in outdoor greenhouses, and while we need to “coach and choreograph” the conditions a bit, we’re using natural light and air.
  3. We are committed to REGENERATIVE FARMING methods and a CIRCULAR ECONOMY business model. We are developing and refining a “circular” growing system, where agricultural and food industry waste products are diverted from the waste stream and sourced as “substrate” or “food” for growing mushrooms. In turn, the “waste” left behind from our mushroom cultivation, the “spent substrate”, provides a biologically rich compost for local farms and gardens. By both “intervening” in the waste stream and leaving the “world a better place” with our compost, Dream Farm offers a regenerative alternative.
  4. “LET FOOD BE THY MEDICINE”. Mushrooms provide a remarkable amount of nutritional benefit, as well as significant anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and immunomodulation properties, as shown in numerous clinical trials. But even more than this, mushrooms provide an opportunity to integrate these health and wellness benefits in our diet itself, instead of relying on “supplements”. This is what is increasingly being called “functional food” and “adaptogenic food”.
  5. COMMUNITY CULTURE is more sustainable than CONSUMER CULTURE. We don’t think of our customers as “consumers”, but as part of our community, as partners, as part of a larger interconnected web. When someone buys the mushrooms we grow, or signs up as a Community Supported Agriculture (“CSA”) member, they are contributing to our health and vitality as a farm, just as our mushrooms will contribute to their health and vitality. It’s a collaboration. That’s the way the mushrooms would want it!

Meet the founder
C. E. Skovlin has been an amateur mycologist for over 30 years and lives in Point Reyes Station. She brings her training in landscape architecture, biodynamic farming, urban planning, ecology and philosophy to the mission and vision for Dream Farm Mushrooms, and is a member of the climate action artist collective CICADA.

We’d love to hear from you!
If you’d like to say hello, ask a question, order mushrooms, or get more info, drop us a line HERE or go to dreamfarmmushrooms.com