OXFORD, Ohio – It was like going down a rabbit hole. That’s how Keenan and Tessa Thomas, of T.A.K.E. Mushrooms, described the start of their business. They began experimenting with how to grow different types of mushrooms by reading and watching YouTube videos. Now their gourmet mushrooms are in demand at local farmers markets.

“It was a combination of things that made me dive into it,” Keenan Thomas said. “It was the mushroom extracts that we started using in our coffee. As soon as we tried that we noticed a difference; we felt like we had more energy. Once we did that, we kind of went down a rabbit hole and started learning how to grow different types and it has been downhill from there.”

“For me, it is a hobby,” Tessa said. “It’s like growing plants. You get this reward of starting from a seed and then you get something that fruits and you enjoy it; but with the mushrooms, it is just a different fascination. From the moment that the blocks that they grow on start pinning (the process that takes place in the first part of mushroom formation) you have to go in every day and see the difference.”

You can see a difference from morning to evening, Keenan added. Especially with oyster mushrooms, the fastest-growing strain they raise.

“We grow them in our basement which is an ideal environment,” Keenan said. “We like those cooler temperatures for a lot of the strains we grow; 65 degrees is great. Now that it is heating up this summer, I have had to look into a few different strains to find some that will do better at higher temperatures.”

They start the process of growing mushrooms with a liquid culture, sugar water with mycelium (the vegetative part of a fungus consisting of a network of fine white filaments) growing in it, Tessa said. After putting it in a petri dish and determining that it is not contaminated, it goes into a sterilized grain mixture of oats, millet seed, and corn.

Once the grain spawn is fully colonized, it is distributed to blocks of pasteurized substrate made of hydrated hardwood sawdust and added nutrients, such as soy hull. Once colonized, the block is exposed to oxygen and moved to a humidity-controlled room to fruit.

“If you rip open a mushroom and stick a needle in it you get a little piece of that tissue you can put that on a piece of agar and you can grow pounds and pounds of mushrooms from that one tiny piece of mycelia,” Keenan said. “That’s why they call it ‘riding the mycelial wave’. It just expands.”

The duo learned from the YouTube videos but they also did a mentorship with Andrew Reed at Mossy Creek Mushrooms in Tennessee. The learning continues as they just bought a microscope and are figuring out what to look for.

The couple is always interested in finding new mushroom strains. They have foraged for mushrooms and had some success growing them, but the yields just weren’t there. They have not yet given up on that.

Currently, they are increasing their growing space. Since they started with dehydrated mushrooms in their coffee, that is an area they may expand on at some time with the extra room. Keenan is working full-time in the mushroom business while Tessa has a job.

The Oxford Farmers Market, a year-round market, is their home base but they have expanded to markets in Lebanon, Mason, and a new market in Middletown.

“I love doing this it because it provides endless opportunities and that’s what keeps it fun,” Tessa said. “I don’t think that we’ll ever get bored and it is going to take a few years for us to really figure out our bearings.

“What is great about the mushrooms being local is we have regular customers who come and see us every week,” she said. “We are supporting them and they are supporting us. These are products that you can’t get from big distributors because they don’t ship well, they don’t store well; these products don’t exist unless you’re going to grow them yourself. And it is fun to be part of the farmers market community.”

Added Keenan: “I had a man at the market yesterday and he was so excited to see all the different mushrooms. He was telling his wife, ‘You don’t understand. You cannot get these at the grocery store.’”