Local Hero: Farm, Central New Mexico

AN INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW FIEN GRETTON, FOUNDER
Photos by Stephanie Cameron

Left: Oyster mushrooms before harvest. Middle: Matthew Fien Gretton with oyster mushrooms.
Right: Harvested oyster mushrooms.

Matt’s Mushroom Farm started as an undergraduate project in the lush countryside of upstate New York. Then, for six years, founder Matt Fien Gretton worked for Cottonwood Gulch Expeditions, a nonprofit outdoor adventure foundation, and fell in love with the Southwest. He began as an intern and moved into the assistant director role—not your everyday route into the mushroom farm business. “I am passionate about food justice and protecting our fragile environment,” he says about his work. At one time he did a “lot of nerd stuff,” but now he is “husband to one of the hardest-working teachers in ABQ, and father to a beautiful and dinosaur-obsessed three-year-old” who (along with running a mushroom farm in Los Ranchos) takes all his energy.

You originally delved into mycology in a decidedly different culture and climate. Tell us about your journey from Syracuse to Albuquerque and why you brought your mushroom dream with you.

With Cottonwood Gulch Expeditions, I got to travel all across the Four Corners, finding and visiting every national monument, park, ranger station, Pueblo center, farm, or art studio . . . anywhere there was natural wonder or a friendly person who wanted to share what they do with some eager kiddos. In that time, I made a ton of connections all around the state. One of those was with a mushroom farm in Albuquerque, which eventually hired me as a consultant (due to my mycology experience in college). When the owner of that farm retired, she offered to work out a deal for me to take over her equipment. This was a chance to put into practice a plan and dream that I’d had stuffed in my back pocket for ten years. It was a huge leap and risk but we decided it was worth it to try.

Seventy percent of your farm’s mushroom substrate is produced using waste products from other industries. What kinds of waste products, and how does that work?

We use wood pellets that are produced from urban forestry work—nuisance tree removal and other stuff that the city does—as well as timber stand improvement on Mount Taylor. We also use coffee grounds from Villa Myriam’s cold brew canning line and paper waste from Roses Southwest Papers. These are all great foods for mushrooms because they are processed, which makes it easier for our mushrooms to digest, and less likely to carry contamination.

How do you decide which mushrooms to grow? Any cooking tips?

We grow the easiest- and fastest-growing mushrooms, oyster and lion’s mane, mostly because they are able to grow in a wide range of conditions. Some other mushrooms are much more picky, and if you get anything wrong they will abort growth and start all over again. As for cooking, always start your mushrooms in a dry pan with no oil or sauce, sauté for a few minutes until they release some of their moisture and it evaporates, then add your fat. That way you don’t end up with soggy, oily shrooms.

You’ve described some of your customers as mushroom fanatics. Do mushroom fans tend to have any characteristics in common, aside from the love of edible fungi?

Usually they are into DIY stuff. Lots of crossover with hydroponics and home brewing. Also, not to stereotype, but mushroom people are just cooler than a lot of other folks.

Left: Shiitake mushrooms. Right: Matthew Fien Gretton displaying his ready-to-eat oyster mushrooms.

Do you produce mushroom compost? In layperson terms, what makes it unique?

Our mushroom compost is basically digested sawdust. It’s very different from the mushroom compost you can get at the home improvement store, and is more useful as a top dressing and mulch than as compost. If you want to keep its properties going, it needs to be kept moist on this bottom layer so that the mushroom can spread from the mulch into the soil.

In addition to mushrooms, you sell mushroom grow kits. What do folks need if they want to try this at home? Are there risks involved in using, say, found wood as a substrate?

Mushrooms will not grow on pine or cedar because of the resins that are in the wood. Grow kits are dead simple, just spray the top of the block with a spray bottle and the mushrooms will grow right out of it—it’s like a very simple magic trick. If you’re going to try growing mushrooms at home, get a fully inoculated, ready-to-fruit kit, one that doesn’t require any mixing or re-bagging, so that your first attempt will be successful.

Are you in favor of psilocybin therapy? And what are the nutritional benefits of the non-hallucinogenic mushrooms you currently raise?

The benefits of mushroom therapy are becoming more and more well documented. I also think psilocybin therapy should be available as a free service to anyone, and especially here in New Mexico, where addiction and depression are two of our biggest social challenges. As for nutrition, oyster mushrooms have a very high percentage of crude protein, which makes them an excellent meat substitute if you are trying to cut fat or calories out of your diet. Lion’s mane also has very well-documented benefits for brain health.

What’s a local food issue that’s important to you?

Access to high-quality, healthy food, specifically produce. Our farmers markets are in danger of getting gentrified so that the people who really need access to that fresh, healthy food can’t afford to go there and buy it. It becomes a boutique food market and not a place where families can get what they need to make dinner. We need to make sure that we have guidelines and incentives in place to keep the cost of the food being produced in our state in a range where people here can afford it. Seventy percent of our produce is being sold out of state.

Anything else you’d like to share with edible readers?

Mushroom growing is a very accessible hobby; you don’t need a ton of expensive equipment, and all the information that you need can be found online. If you think mushrooms are cool, get out there and start hunting for some resources, or get in touch and come volunteer for an afternoon at the farm. It’s not glamorous work—it’s a lot like hauling around big bags of dirt—but you’ll learn a lot.

mattsmushroomfarm.com