A talk, Local Mushrooms: How Do They Grow?, will be presented by Elizabeth Almeida, owner and farmer at Fat Moon Mushrooms, a local farm that supplies gourmet, organic mushrooms to the finest restaurants, grocery stores, and farm stands in the Merrimack Valley, at the next meeting of the Somerville Garden Club on Wednesday, August 14, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.

Almeida will talk about the science and business of producing locally grown mushrooms. The program will include demonstration of mushroom cultivation techniques you can try at home such as tissue culture, grow kits, and log inoculation. This evening is for those who support the local food system, foodies who love mushrooms, and life-long learners who are curious about the science of mushrooms. There will also be the usual plant roundtable and raffle.

Fat Moon Farm, now in its ninth season, is where and how Elizabeth Almeida cultivates her passion for growing and eating delicious food. Fat Moon Farm produces gourmet, organic mushrooms for local restaurants, CSAs, farmstands, and boutique grocery stores.

Fat Moon began as an organic vegetable CSA, but finding land to create a permanent home for the vegetable operation was a challenge in Westford. After four seasons of vegetable farming, Fat Moon evolved a mushroom business that began in Almeida’s basement and in the woods around their home.

In 2018, the business moved out of the basement and into a nearby mill building. Today, Almeida sells her mushrooms to the finest restaurants in Eastern Massachusetts, delivering through Verrill Farm to restaurants in Boston, Concord, and surrounding areas.

Almeida got her start in farming from her family. Her parents were beef farmers in Ohio and both grandfathers were farmers. Her father and grandfather also taught her how to forage for morels on the family farm.

A 2014 article about Fat Moon Farm in Edible Boston quoted Almeida describing how grounding farming is for her “…not just working the earth, but doing something that my ancestors have done and something that we all innately know how to do: to nurture and grow things.”

All Somerville Garden Club meetings are free and open to the public. Meetings are held 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. at the Tufts Administration Building, (TAB), 167 Holland Street, second floor, wheelchair accessible. Parking is available, and the building is a ten-minute walk from the Davis Square MBTA stop. For additional information please visit www.somervillegardenclub.org.