What an absolutely perfect October. The weather was fantastic for enjoying the upstate New York autumn foliage color show. We found lots of late season wild foraged mushrooms. And the fungi fruiting in our containers were so happy with the cooler temperatures.
The Pine Hills Farmers Market wrapped up on Thursday, October 29th. Located on the Property formerly known as Saint Rose, we’ll be returning next season for sure. Scott, the market coordinator had Avery and Bree record separate little blurbs for mushrooms. Who do you think did it better?
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Dani has joined our team! They will be helping to boost our transfer rate and refine our lab processes.
Our Mushrooms were invited by Modern Biology to sing during a Mushroom Church event. It was such a cool event, the venue was beautiful, and the people were all so fantastic! Our fungi performed so well!
We got a complete restock of spore syringes for microscopy purposes from Zenkiki in Colorado. They are available at the Corner Spore and all our market outlets.
Stacked fruiting bags with injection ports for any top fruiting dung loving mushrooms you may be interested in fruiting are also available for sale as well.
Avery Led a walk through Peebles Island with the RPI Biopunk students. We talked about mushrooms for art as well as for food.
One of the ways we are working to grow the mushroom farming industry is through testing out different substrates. Being at Indian Ladder Farms, we have access to unlimited apple pomace. Apple pomace alone isn’t typically used as a secondary agricultural product and often ends up as waste. We are testing it out as feed for mushrooms! If the oyster mushrooms balance the PH as we expect, then it can be used as animal feed! Huge thanks to the small farms team at Cornell for encouraging these experiments.
Another experiment Cornell had us participate in was testing the Lion’s Mane substrate bags. We sent samples in over several weeks in order to evaluate the nutritional content of the substrate as a possible feed source for farm animals.
We found out that Collar City Mushrooms is taught in the Food Sciences class at SUNY Schenectady.
Amy and Avery visited the New York Farm Bureau’s Region 6 Manager up in her home county up in Plattsburgh. New York’s farmers need to stand together!
Avery was a guest on the Mycophany special Farm Hour program with E.A. Karl on 91.3 WIOX Radio Catskill. We talked for nearly the entire hour about all things fungi, including our work with Cornell and NYMHA on wild mushrooms and psilocybin-containing mushrooms.
Steve Gabriel Mushroom farmers of the Northeast
Avery was also a guest on the Mushroom Revival podcast with new hosts, John Michelotti and Gabriela D’Elia. The Episode will be coming out soon! Stay Tuned!
The Troy Waterfront Farmers Market will be moving indoors starting Saturday, November 7th! Rob Braved the chilly wind and the spooky costumes to close out the outdoor season!
Samosa Shack made a spooky treat and used our mushrooms! They completely sold out!
Looking for a way to include mushrooms in your Holiday season meals? Our culinary team picked out three guest pleasing recipes:
EASY: Mushroom Gravy
Recipe: Buy a pack of our ready made gravy and a quarter to half pound of mushrooms (we like to use a mix, but any single variety will do). Sautee the fresh mushrooms and set aside. Make the gravy according to the package directions. The stir in the sauteed mushrooms! Serve over toast or mashed potatoes.
Medium: Crispy Mushroom Canapes
Challenging: Mushroom Shepard’s Pie
Foraged Finds and Fabrications
October is one of the last months of the year for foraging good edible plants and mushrooms.
We found an incredible fruiting of Coprinus comatus (shaggy ink caps) and cooked a few up then saved the rest to make mushroom spore ink!
We did an acorn processing workshop with the team from The Giving Trees . We collected huge baskets of acorns and tasted acorn ice cream, brownies, and a delicious jalapeno chestnut acorn bread! All gluten free and all so delicious! As we were cracking acorns to release their nut meat, Sage and Mark talked about their dream of getting a beer made with acorns. That beer is coming out in November at Indian Ladder Farms Cidery & Brewery and will be featured at our next Mushroom Experience Dinner!
After an incredibly bountiful fungi foraging walk, Amy and Avery made a meal including 12 wild varieties and 5 cultivated types. It was such a colorful and tasty dinner!
We made a cold and flu remedy from various ingredients we foraged throughout the year. This wild elixir includes rosehips, stinging nettle, goldenrod, purple aster, reishi, turkey tail, mullein, thyme, honey, and brandy!
We bottled up our Goldenrod Extract. Available now at all of our market outlets.
PSILOCYBIN CORNER
During our October meeting we discussed our September actions and planned for November’s Fall Fungal Frolic.
Watch the full meeting HERE.
Follow THIS LINK to fill out an individual Statement of Support for our psilocybin policy efforts.
Follow THIS LINK to fill out an Organizational Statement of Support.
For our November NYMHA Monthly Member meeting we’ll be planning the November 21st Fall Fungal Frolic Fundraiser. We’ll be in person at Indian Ladder Farms or access our meeting via zoom at the link below!
We need YOUR stories! If you are interested in helping change the hearts and minds of our state law makers with your story, please let us know. EMAIL Avery HERE.
Join us at Indian Ladder Farms in the Clear Mountain Room (Park in Lot C) for our 2026 Fall Fungal Frolic Fundraiser and educational panel! Details below.
COMING SOON
New Yorkers for Mental Health Alternatives Monthly Meeting, Tuesday, November 10th 7pm – 8pm. This monthly meeting we’ll be Planning for the Fall Fungal Frolic and doing a late year legislative update on some of our behind the scenes activities.
Join remotely via zoom here:
A Mushroom Experience Dinner Featuring Chef David Chaiken Saturday, November 14th 5:30pm – 7:30pm. A 3 course plant and fungi based dinner. Music by Nick Bisanz. Suggested pairings will be available for purchase. $80 a seat.
Get tickets HERE.
NYMHA Fall Fungal Frolic Fundraiser @ Indian Ladder Farms, Saturday, Nov 21. 4pm – 9pm. Featuring food from local chefs, an educational panel on how we are creating legal access, live music by The Windmill Society, and a silent auction! Come join us! For more information and to get tickets, see the Eventbrite link HERE.
Mushroom Book Club, Sunday, November 22, 2pm We are reading Animal Mycophiles. Author Eva Gordon will be joining us via zoom.
