‘Funguy’ with passion for mushroom cultivation shares knowledge & harvest with community
'Funguy' Greg Carter has been cultivating incredible mushrooms since 2006. During the Covid-19 pandemic
By Meghan Danahey
Click here for updates on this story
MILLS RIVER, North Carolina (WLOS) — A man in Mills River is passionate about fungi and he loves to share his mushroom knowledge.
In 1999, Greg Carter – we will call him “Johnny Mushroom Spore’ – was looking for unique Christmas gifts for friends and family. A neighbor asked if he’d ever thought about mushroom logs.
She sent him home with fresh shitakes plucked from those logs and after he cooked them up, he went online to order 30 logs as gifts. The next year he did 100 logs, then 300 the following year, then 700!
“By 2006, it mushroomed into a business – pun intended – and there’s no turning back,” Carter said. “It is so interesting. I realized what I’m doing is one of the oldest forms of mushroom cultivation in the world. They were doing this 1,500 years ago. Hacking into logs, packing the spores in there, wrapping them in banana leaves or whatever to grow mushrooms. We have power tools now to make it easier, but this is not new by any means.”
Local chefs in the mountains flocked to Johnny Mushroom Spore to purchase all kinds of mushrooms, then the pandemic hit. With restaurants struggling, he had to morph his business to agrotourism. Deep Woods Mushrooms now offers hunt tours and cultivating classes — all thanks to “The Funguy.”
“This is the most biodiverse area in the world,” Carter said, describing just how unique Western North Carolina is. “There’s more species of everything here than anywhere else. Why is that? Millions of years ago the Appalachian Mountain chain was bigger than the Himalayas. The polar ice caps came down and they stopped here. When they receded, they left behind seeds and spores and animals and all sorts of stuff.”
When Carter cultivates mushrooms on his farm, he is mimicking Mother Nature. It is labor intensive, but he says you won’t find a fresher mushroom anywhere. He takes his to the Transylvania Farmers’ Market in Brevard every Saturday.
They have health benefits, like vitamin D and cancer-fighting properties, but the mushrooms Carter grows and hunts can be a tasty treat.
“Most people that say they hate mushrooms grew up with those white, slimy, white button mushrooms in a can or they picked them off a pizza or pulled them out of spaghetti,” he said. “If you could taste some of the culinary treats out there such as the Shaggy Stalked Bolete or the Beefsteak Mushroom – they’re phenomenal! It’s a culinary treat that very few people will ever get to experience because you won’t find them in the grocery store and it’s very rare unless you’re paying top prices for your entrees in local restaurants.”
Many people who have taken his classes have gone on to do great work with mushroom cultivation in laboratory settings, like cloning. Others have simply improved their health and put a new, fresh treat on the table.
“To see people who take my classes, and then go far beyond what I’m doing, it’s very exciting! But I’m going to continue doing what I’m doing.”
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
