Finding Balance through Fungi Farming

Josiah grew a love for farming mushrooms, and now he grows them as his livelihood. It can take several months to see good results in growing high-quality fungi, but he finds the challenge rewarding and fulfilling, in more ways than one.

“Since I’ve really found my calling in this, I feel like it has helped me become who I was meant to be, and through that everything has been strengthened,” Josiah shares.

Video Transcript

Meet Josiah: fungi farmer

Josiah: We produce 300–400 pounds of mushrooms. We inoculate them in the lab over there. We get to take them to farmer’s markets and to restaurants. A lot of the new stuff we’re learning, it touches two month, three month incubation time. So when you’re putting months into something and you see anything new you’ve tried come through and you get good results — oh, my gosh, so rewarding.

I was the one that worked lots of different jobs. My wife was pregnant, and we kind of set out to build something that would allow me to spend time with my daughter. Things just started growing and before we knew it, in less than a year, Erin was able to quit her job that she’d had for 17 years at Walgreens, just like that.

(Talking to daughter) Do you want to get the eggs?

My daughter is 19 months, but she’s already out there doing the chickens. She likes to pick mushrooms, like the scrap mushrooms, and put them in the bin. I would say my favorite mushroom to grow is always the next one — trying to learn something new and seeing success. Since I’ve really found my calling in this, I feel like it has helped me become who I was meant to be, and through that everything has been strengthened.