How we operate
'Pins' bursting through the bark of a Vineyard black oak log
Salvaged Vineyard oak
- All Island Sourced: no raw material from off island
- No ‘incentivized’ cutting: we work with island businesses to salvage chipper bound wood from construction and industrial sites- and grow food on it!
- Back to the soil: spent logs are essentially compost! Our waste is quickly converted topsoil.
Jack and Truman stacking newly inoculated logs in our beautiful incubation area- we rely on the natural climate and forest canopy to provide optimal conditions for log colonization
Hand inoculated, forest incubated
- We manually seed customized strains of mycelium in unprocessed logs- NOT pasteurized growth medium
- Logs lie under natural forest canopy for full year until colonized- NO climate control
- Relying on our island climate to provide the ideal conditions for growth and the log’s bark to deter competitors means we minimize energy inputs
Tucker shows off two gorgeous, fresh cut caps
The most protein: Gallon for Gallon
For our local New England community, Wild harvest shiitakes provide an imminently sensible source of protein without any costs externalized in fuel, fertilizer or feed.
We must view land and water as finite resources in our rapidly changing world, and we feel that agriculture and our own habits as consumers can make an enormous impact on our footprint.
The Vineyard’s unique ecology makes our mushrooms the most efficient form of local protein production, both in land and water use. We utilize only five outdoor acres to produce thousands of pounds of protein per season.