Mattituck Mushrooms is Awarded a Snail of Approval
Mattituck Mushrooms is a unique story. Owners Agathe and Anthony are sculptors by profession and are very new to farming. Agathe’s sister started a small mushroom-growing business in NYC. The pandemic caused the business to falter, and Agathe suggested that the 4-acre parcel she and her husband owned might serve as a possible landing spot for the company. A hobby farming enterprise was born in 2019.
The owners quickly realized that the soil, water, and different amounts of sunlight were ideal for the production of mushrooms. Serendipity. Now there was a growing realization that a viable business could thrive. Mattituck Mushrooms has grown tremendously in its 6 years of operation. They used to produce fifty pounds of mushrooms per week, but now they produce five hundred. Their growing practices are exemplary and correspond to our Slow Food ideals. They use the term “art crafted.” This is a natural process. They grow seasonally, letting the mushrooms tell them when each one is ready to be grown. They slow-grow using solar energy, never using forced CO2 as other mushroom growers do. They employ environmentally safe growing methods as exemplified by never using pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides. They attribute their local and unique tasting mushrooms to two impossible factors. One, they consider their soil to be “virgin soil” as the land has not been used before as farmland. They carefully cultivate the land used in some crop production, never over-farming. The second factor is the use of well water, which comes from the pristine glacial melt waters that feed the Laurel Lake (Kettle Hole) Preserve. Much of the work is done in hoop houses, where the sun and a small humidifier provides the necessary energy and humidity for the mushrooms to thrive. Unlike large corporate growers, Mattituck does not use any machinery in cultivation. Mattituck Mushrooms is exemplary in achieving our goal of sustaining a healthy planet. There is no waste in their operation. Anything that is not sold is recycled. Discarded material is either collected to make sculptures or is used to make growing boxes for the mushrooms. Spent grain blocks are also reused and available to the public. These blocks can be used as compost in a garden or used to grow a second flush of mushrooms. Extreme care is used to protect the consumer. Both owners have studied extensively to perfect their craft. They use only the finest substrate. The mushrooms are allowed to breathe fresh air. They provide natural light and control the temperate environment very carefully. Finally, all packaging material is biodegradable. They use only recyclable paper bags and cardboard boxes. Bravo to Mattituck Mushrooms, keep farming and keeping the East End a special place to live, grow and eat deliciously.
