Farhad Zahir incorporated his business, “Fungisle,” last year on Cortes Island and his edible mushroom farm is expanding quickly. A new community supported agriculture (CSA) box service has been introduced for the summer season with Fungisle.

As local islanders often discover the fungus food at the local Friday Market, prospective farmers and gardeners are being offered the chance to do it themselves with hands-on workshops.

Zahir started offering mushroom-growing workshops at Linnaea Farm in May and he is planning another workshop for the near future. This workshop intends to get deeper into the possibilities of integrating mushroom farming into existing gardens and farms. The budding farmer explains, "I think it's really important because it's an unknown area. And it seems very complicated, but it's not, it can be very simplified and easy to approach. And I really liked to bring that to people. I really enjoy sharing what I know and the more that I share that with people I'd become better at it. So it's a great exchange, right?"

“We're going to be making mushroom patches and show people how to incorporate those into their garden," Zahir explains. "I'm also going to be covering how to use the same technique to create a water filtration system with mycelium. This is for a remediation project that we are doing at Linnaea farm.” 

Fungisle CSA is available by emailing livespore@protonmail.com; Zahir can also be reached at this email for up to date information on future workshops.

Learn more about the possibilities with fungus on Cortes Island in the CKTZ News update below: