Mushrooms sprout new lease on life in remote woolshed in Waitōtara Valley

Kyle and Cath Davey of Valley Mushrooms. Photo / Leah Tebbutt, RNZ

Kyle Davey is a man with many hats. He’s been a sheep farmer, a builder, a beekeeper and the local postman.

Two years ago, he decided he needed a winter off - but with all those skills under his belt, it’s no surprise he got bored.

But an idea was sprouting, and by happy coincidence, and eventually some pretty fungi turned into a serious horticultural enterprise.

“I thought ‘I’ve got to find something to do while I’m at home’,” Kyle said.

“I saw some ready-to-grow bags and got addicted from there.”

Kyle says he’s always been interested in mushrooms and simply got carried away.

He and his wife Cath live up New Zealand’s longest no-exit road - Waitōtara Valley Rd in South Taranaki.

It’s where the couple have landed since meeting in Australia where Cath worked as a theatre nurse.

Melbourne was the first stop on Kyle’s world trip - but after meeting Cath he never travelled further.

With their 2-year-old son, the couple eventually returned to farm in the area where Kyle grew up.

“We call it Paradise Valley. We’re about 34km up, hidden away in the hills.”

The valley is the inspiration behind the name Valley Mushrooms.

Pink and grey oyster mushrooms sprouting in the fruiting chamber at Valley Mushrooms. Photo / Leah Tebbutt, RNZ

Kyle focuses his efforts on growing gourmet mushrooms such as pink and grey oyster mushrooms, shiitake and Pekepeke-kiore, also known as New Zealand lion’s mane or coral tooth fungus.

At the time of acquiring his first grow bag, Kyle had sold off most of the farm, keeping 12ha including the olive green woolshed.

Originally an aircraft hangar in Whanganui, it was brought to the farm by the previous owner and reassembled.

Now the structure is having its third lease on life.

Instead of pens full of sheep, there are shelves packed with bags of pine pellets inoculated with mushroom spores.

“I’d still spend my days over here with a cold beer, tinkering away in the shed.

“I just grew a couple to start with and from there I thought, maybe I’ll grow some and take them to the market and see what happens.”

That’s where Kyle’s building skills came in handy.

He converted the woolshed into insulated labs and fruiting chambers. Shelf after shelf contains mushrooms at all the different stages of growth throughout the shed.

The olive green woolshed is having its third lease on life after once being a hangar - it's now a mushroom farm. Photo / Leah Tebbutt, RNZ

The process begins with soybean hull and pine pellets.

One kilogram of each goes into each bag - via a contraption made by Kyle, of course - and it’s then mixed with water and steamed for 30 hours to kill off the bugs.

“From there, they go up into the lab where we inoculate them with the grain spawn.

“They’ll take about two weeks until they are ready to fruit. So all we have to do there is put some holes in it, put it into the humidity room and mushrooms will grow.”

Everyone tends to get a different flavour out of the different mushrooms, Kyle says.

“A lot of people reckon [the coral’s tooth] tastes like seafood, but I’ve eaten a lot of seafood and I don’t know.

“The pink one they call ‘bacon mushrooms’ ‘cause if you fry it crispy it’s got that bacon flavour.”

After starting out with a grow bag himself, Kyle now sells his own grow bags, which he sells at New Plymouth’s Seaside Market.

“People just like to grow nice fresh food - they can grow it on the kitchen bench right beside the frypan.”