Today we’d like to introduce you to Ricky Grant.
Hi Ricky, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
It had dawned on us how much of an influence fungi has on the well-being of the whole planet. So, we decided to set out on an adventure to develop a relationship with fungi to vitalize our community and our lands with the power of mushrooms. We started the journey in 2019 right before Covid had taken its hit on the nation. Our business became successful pretty quickly because most people were shopping at farmers markets and having a deep realization of the importance of freshly grown food. At this time, Ricky was growing mushrooms along with working another job as a machinist. He started his first market in Fredericksburg in the fall of 2019. After working markets, he decided to reach out to local restaurants. He then became excited about the medicine of mushrooms and the science behind them, and started branching off into the world of medicinal tinctures. We had amazing feedback from the community on how our tinctures were helping them to feel well in many of their health challenges….Covid included. Looking back, it seems as though we started our business at the perfect time- when others truly needed a “taste of well-being”
Lisa, Ricky’s wife was teaching during this time of the start of the business at San Saba Elementary as a 3rd grade ELAR teacher. She was helping Ricky after hours with the growth of the business. There were many months that turned into years of late nights and pushing for the dream of growing mushrooms full time together. In 2022, Lisa stepped away from teaching to help Ricky maintain the business as restaurant orders increased, online sales of medicines, and an uptake on the number of farmers markets increased.
We are proud to say we are now able to have our own dream of partaking in the role of vitalizing our community with fresh food, medicines, and fungal dominant mushroom compost- we call it Soil Probiotic, because it is healing the land and soils. It can be used for potted plants, raised beds, and even large scale farming. We are providing this compost to local farms in our area and they have seen an increase in yield in their produce, an increase in health of the vegetation and a lack of pests, as well as a longer shelf life.
Our farm is a full cycle farm from start to finish. Which means nothing we have goes to waste. We grow the mushrooms- they go to farmers markets, retail spots, and restaurants. If there is an overabundance, the mushrooms will be used for sun drying and made into dried mushroom packs or will be dried and turned into our mushroom spice- the spice melange. Our spent blocks that are no longer producing mushrooms will come out of the fruiting room and will be put into the compost process to be broken down into our soil probiotic. We also put our spent blocks on the curbside every Monday for free for anyone who would like to use them for gardening or to regenerate their soil/land.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Growing mushrooms from start to finish consistently is a difficult task with many variables. Some of the variables include struggles with contamination, environmental errors, trying to meet promises- for ex: production/yields and being consistent with restaurants on their orders. There are many factors that can contribute to inconsistency- equipment can malfunction- even though we grow in a controlled environment we still experienced snowzilla (hard freezes) BUT WE STILL continue to produce and provide. We found that once consistency of cultivating fungi was achieved, educating the public of the many wonders was the next task. Cultivating mushrooms is now a trendy thing these days and there is also a bit of competition now. We believe that our symphony of our products, our mushrooms, our tinctures, our soil probiotic and our spice sets apart from the rest of growers and sings a healing song of “well-being” 🙂
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Our farm is run by a dynamic married duo Ricky and Lisa Grant.
Ricky spent most of his life as an automotive machinist, and a jack of all trades as he says “a master of none” but it led him to ultimately having all the precise skills to be an excellent mushroom farmer. His expertise is finding the best methods to grow the mushrooms, such as the raw materials that go into production, knowing what the mushrooms need for the best environment for each species to grow, & taking care of the mechanical side of the operation (repairing equipment and being the diagnostic of the business)
Lisa was a teacher most of her life teaching 3rd grade for 4 years and preschool for 3 years before stepping away to join Ricky in the adventure of mushroom farming. Her expertise is in managing restaurant orders, talking to chefs, and taking care of the books as well as assisting in the production side and harvesting/growing practices.
You will see both of our friendly faces delivering mushrooms to chefs, local retail spots, and working farmers markets. We do it all!
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
We want to thank God, first and foremost for his creation and the gift of giving us the abilities to do what we are doing. We also want to give a shout out to our chefs who believed in us enough to keep ordering when we first began and up until now. Our first chef to order when we began was Chef Ross Burtwell of Cabernet Grill in Fredericksburg, TX. He is still one of our valued customers today. We would like to thank all of our customers that support us through buying from us at farmers markets, sharing our story through social media, and purchasing products from our online store. We would not be here if it weren’t for our chefs and our customers.
We’d like to thank Jordan Jent of Texas Fungus to being a huge mentor to Ricky and many other growers that were kind enough to share knowledge with Ricky when he began his growing journey.
We’d like to thank our friends and family that have supported us on our journey from stopping by at the farm, checking in on us, and encouraging us and being a huge support system to keep us in the game.
We’d also like to thank Devin Osbourn of Llano, TX that comes to help us with our heavy labor intensive days on Mondays and for filling in for us at farmers markets so we can have rest days. Thank you Devin! You are a valued member or our team.
Pricing:
- We make our products affordable because we want everyone to have them. Pricing details are listed on our website www.enchantedmushrooms.farm
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.enchantedmushrooms.farm
- Instagram: @enchanted_mushrooms
- Facebook: Enchanted Mushrooms- @LlanoFungus
