429: Thomas Tuoti on Growing Mushrooms at Home.

Minimizing food waste and improving soils by growing fungi.


Thomas Tuoti on Growing Mushrooms at HomeTom practices permaculture at his home, or as he calls it “The Homestead, in Mesa, Arizona. He has been doing urban agriculture for 8 years; but before he ever stuck a shovel in the ground, he became interested in mushrooms and how they can be used to mitigate food waste and improve soils. He now manages edible landscape projects in the greater Phoenix area and is developing an at-home mushroom kit so people can grow their own. 

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In This Podcast:

We learn the ins and outs of growing mushrooms at home with Thomas Tuoti. Listen in for the difference between mushrooms and mycelium as well as how to use them to build your soil. Mushrooms are the composting tool we never knew we needed, and Tom shares how to harness the biological efficiency of mushrooms, use them to enrich your landscape, and how to start growing them at home. 

Listen in and learn about:

    • How Tom discovered the biological efficiency of mushrooms.
    • How to grow 1lb of mushrooms per 1lb of substrate
    • The difference between mushrooms and
    • How mycelium improves soil and helps your plants
    • Arizona’s agricultural challenges and how mushrooms can help
    • The compostable foods you can use to grow mushrooms
    • The easiest mushrooms for beginners to grow
    • How to build your soil at home using mushrooms
    • Edible landscaping ideas that take very little water
    • How to get started in mushroom growing
    • Identifying things in your landscape to inoculate with mushrooms

As well as: 

His failure – Slowly learning to identify contamination in the mushrooms and how to fix an outbreak.

His success – Teaching at Chandler/Gilbert Community College and as a class built the first no water garden bed using mushrooms.

His drive – To help reduce food waste and how we fit into our landscape.

His advice – Don’t be afraid of mushrooms in your soil, but never eat a mushroom unless you are sure where it came from and it’s variety!

Tom’s Book recommendations:  

Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms by Paul Stamets

How to reach Tom: 

Sorry, we no longer have his contact information.

UrbanFarm.org/mushroomtom


Note: You can also find these books mentioned above at one of our favorite local independent bookstores and have the satisfaction of knowing you are supporting a small business.


*Disclosure:
Some of the links in our podcast show notes and blog posts are affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase, we will earn a nominal commission at no cost to you. We offer links to items recommended by our podcast guests and guest writers as a service to our audience and these items are not selected because of the commission we receive from your purchases. We know the decision is yours, and whether you decide to buy something is completely up to you. 

2 Comments

    • Unfortunately Tom’s website is no longer active. We do not have any contact information on him at this time. Perhaps you can contact Ed Williams at Email: edwilliamspe@gmail.com – he is quite helpful on all the topics he teaches about, and very passionate about mushrooms. His website is Madbioneer.blogspot.com. We interviewed him in episode 453 http://www.UrbanFarm.org/lehr

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