Business mushrooms in a Lakeville backyard
Danielle and Peter Ralston think big with Tiny Tinks Farm in Minnesota
By Michelle M. Sharp
Special to Sun Thisweek
Dakota County Tribune
Aug 9, 2021
Except:
Peter and Danielle Ralston’s backyard is a 4,000-square-foot wonderland. With mushrooms growing inside and out of their home, colorful nasturtiums blooming, and 17 varieties of heirloom produce all around, it’s a beautifully unique landscape, and not what one would expect in a suburban backyard.
Mowing the lawn was Peter’s least favorite thing about owning their house. He’d always dreamed about having a large vegetable garden. He asked Danielle, his wife, “Are you going to be OK with me taking up most of the backyard for a garden we may or may not be able to make succeed because I don’t know what I’m doing?”
As a parent to a growing family of boys (including one just born this July), Danielle told him to go ahead. “At least we’ll be able to use all the produce for ourselves and cut down on our food bills.” The couple broke ground on their joint lifestyle venture that blends the professional and personal, incorporating their children in the work to make their organic urban micro farm run. This is their third season at Twin Cities metro area farmers’ markets.
When we met for our interview, Peter was just taking a break from the in-house mushroom incubation room. The colors and shapes of the mushrooms are as beautiful as their names: pearl and golden oysters, lions mane, pioppino, and shiitakes. Like humans, fungi inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. As they grow, they produce warmth. Making sure that they don’t overheat is as important as providing the right food. The cultivated mushrooms grow from a mix of hard oak sawdust and organic soybean hulls. The strains come from a mushroom growers guild whose members share successful spores much like bakers share sourdough starters.
