February marked one year since we officially opened our doors for sales and experiences. One year of growing mushrooms and spreading the mycelium. One year of expansion, development, and refinement. We have come far, and we have so much left to accomplish. February was a whirlwind of events, setting the pace for an active and exciting 2022 for sure.
We grew an abundance of Black Pearl Trumpets and patrons at nearly all of our restaurant customers got to experience them in a variety of dishes.
Valentine’s Dinner with Dave and Corinne was a delightful on-the-farm evening that wowed the taste buds and elicited choruses of ‘oohs’ and ‘aaahs’ with every course.
A backyard garden’s chickens enjoying some mushroom compost blocks.
Albany Victory Gardens Compost pick up resumed with ideas for a closer partnership in 2022 with Collar City Mushrooms members working with The Victory Gardens team to help their growers better understand the variety of mushrooms that can be grown in their urban plots.
Nearly the full Collar City Mushroom’s team attended the Capital Roots Garden Bowl fundraising event.
We loaded in several of Lois Lewis Schumm’s artworks for her show on March 26th. (see “coming soon” section for more details)
Collar City Mushrooms is moving into Phase 2 of its operation: purchase the building, expand into the second floor, and build out a commercial kitchen. With this exciting announcement we are also launching a Phase 2 gofundme with new rewards as we plan for our next steps.
2 new at home grow operations have come in for bulk purchases of ready-to-fruit mushroom grow bags. One of which will be growing under our banner as the Collar City Mushrooms East Chatham Extension, providing pioppinos to restaurants and shops in the Chatham area.
Emma Willard Senior Intern Jiwoo came for a site visit and will be starting her month-long internship in March.
Avery visited the Emma Willard School for a mushroom cooking demonstration and mycology lesson.
Collar City Mushrooms leveled up our register system with a new Squareup checkout device!
2 new Troy Spots where you can find our mushrooms:
The SUNY Cobleskill Plant Science and Sustainability Club reached out to establish a connection and plan for a site visit, future mushroom projects on campus, and additional internship opportunities.
Our Digital Harvest Dashboard has progressed nicely and will be fully launched in April. We are working some of the data kinks out and it is coming together nicely! Designed by Nathan Stempel this system will track our growing mushroom inventory and detail where in the process all of our products are in real time and be viewable by our customers.
New Product: Mushroom Jerky! We are producing 3 flavors: Classic, Red Hot, and Teriyaki. Made with our farm grown King Trumpets and Black Pearl Trumpets these chewy snacks are absolutely delicious.
Coming Soon:
Tuesday, March 8, and Tuesday March 22 from 7 to 8pm: Meditation amongst the mushrooms. A bi-weekly meditation session. March 8th’s session will be off site around a fire with some drums, please message / contact us for details (via facebook/instagram/email at collarcitymushroom@gmail.com).
Sunday, March 13, 2pm: Second Sunday Poetry and Prose will be back in person on March 13th at 2pm. THis open mic for poetry and prose is hosted by wordsmiths Dan Wilcox and Nancy Klepsch.
Monday, March 14th, 6pm: A Fungi Yoga with Alyssa Ladzinski: reserve your spot on eventbrite here:
Thursday, March 17th, 7pm: Our Mushroom Book Club will be meeting to share the medicinal products we each made and talk about chapters 2 and 3 of Medicinal Mushrooms by Christopher Hobbs.
Friday March 18th: Worm Moon Yoga: A full Moon Vinyasa Flow with Maria Diotte. This is a community Yoga class by donation.
Thursday, March 24th: Avery will be featured on “The Nick Bisanz Show” in order to discuss the upcoming Psilocybin Symposium and other mushroom news.
Saturday, March 26th 5pm – 8pm: We will host our first art night of 2022:
Exploring All Peoples through Artistry – A Celebration of the Life Works of Lois Lewis Schumm
With musical guest Nick Bisanz and culinary treats by Meg Meduna and the Collar City Mushroom’s team.
Saturday, April 9th: Dinner on the Farm with the Meaty Max Team: More details to follow, but be assured they will be cooking up something incredible featuring meaty max vegan/gluten free sticks and mushrooms!
Saturday, April 16th: Diotte Sorelle WSG: Avery: a Pink Moon Celebration of percussion and poetry.
Tuesday, April 19th: Ending the Prohibition of the Mind, a Mushroom Symposium
Register here:
Our Full 2022 Bliss Arts Curated Music and Creativity Collaborations calendar has been crafted!
(for complete details see our events and happenings page or facebook-we are working on populating an interactive calendar for easy reference – coming soon)
Collar City Mushrooms 