Derwent Valley Fungi

G’day, I’m Josh.I didn’t learn mycology from a degree. I learned it the hard way: contaminated bags, failed fruitings, and a lot of questions nobody around me could answer. I taught myself from trial and error, and that’s exactly why I can teach you without the jargon.My background is practical. I spent most of my adult life as a chef, so I know what good mushrooms taste like and what the kitchen actually wants from a grower. I’ve also worked as a vineyard supervisor and operator, so I think in systems: what’s the simplest setup that works every time? I’m currently working on an organic, biodynamic vineyard in southern Tasmania, where soil, sustainability and closed loops are part of the daily routine.That mindset led me to start Derwent Valley Fungi, where I grow specialty mushrooms commercially in a climate-controlled container in Granton, about 25 minutes from Hobart. I started in 2021 and over the years have gathered many different cultures, and now successfully fruit oyster, king oyster, maitake, lion’s mane, and coral tooth, which I supply to the local community. What I teach in this course isn’t theory. It’s what I do every week to put mushrooms on a plate.Why I teach: Mushroom growing looks mysterious from the outside, and it doesn’t need to be. A bucket, some substrate, e.g., straw, and a bit of understanding is enough to grow your own food. I want you to skip the months of trial and error I went through. Using recycled and waste materials, we can provide tasty, nutritious food for our families for a very small investment in time and energy.Something most people don’t know: I use as much recycled material as possible, including buckets from the marketplace and agricultural waste, and make most of the equipment I use myself, again from recycled materials such as barrels and old wood.What you’ll walk away with: a working bucket that will fruit in the next 3 weeks, the reasoning behind each step so you can troubleshoot on your own, and the confidence to scale up if you want to.