For many people, the word “cleaning” holds negative connotations of chores and grunge work. However, when growing mushrooms for a living, cleaning needs to be incorporated into your day-to-day life. Contaminants are always lingering around waiting for their chance to take hold, and if the work to keep them at bay isn’t put in, your harvest isn’t going to be up to par.
Contrary to popular belief, mushrooms generally require a fair amount of light to grow well. In fact, the mushrooms that grow on the back of our blocks and don’t get much light tend to grow looking slightly wilted. While they’re still good for personal consumption, they’re not the quality we want to sell to a restaurant.
Mushrooms love fresh air and moisture. The two are a large component of a healthy grow room environment, and an essential balancing act for the growth of high quality, restaurant ready mushrooms.
In The Art of War, Sun Tzu expanded on an older Chinese proverb, saying, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” It is for precisely this reason that I’m exploring these concepts. I want to develop a pattern language to articulate what we are seeing in the market, so we can better define ourselves and the other actors in the space that we will inevitably be competing with.
The second habit in Stephen R. Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is “Begin with the End in Mind.” We have discussed this idea of working backwards a lot, but recent conversations have highlighted to me that there is a need to explore the ultimate direction that the market is heading, so we can better articulate why we are doing what we are doing.
When designing a grow room, it’s important to know that keeping your room hospitable for growing mushrooms is a constant balancing act between five main factors. Perfection isn’t necessary, or even attainable, but it’s essential to realize that often when one element changes, another will have to as well. It’s a push and pull to get the correct combination, but your mushrooms will tell you what they’re needing, if you pay attention.