DIETZ FARM MUSHROOMS

Sequim Washington
the site of the inadvertent creation of
Sequim Terra Preta
Lowell and Audree Dietz do Carpentry in Sequim.
Lowell's hobby is mushroom cultivation.
This has become a source of income.
The photo on the left is a plastic column of barley straw
that has been shredded, cooked and inoculated with
grain spawn.   The mushroom is Pleurotus columbinus
also known as "Blue Cap Oyster Mushroom".
This mushroom is possibly the worlds best pizza mushroom.
Aaron Hilliard from KPMS made a video about our mushroom farm.
   It is about 16 minutes long.
Here is a link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1prx-iEx1eWVCc-KlpVGveDrQ3zd-IID3/view

 Hear Lowell's 18 minute presentation to Master Gardeners
"How to make regenerative soil from mushroom cultivation byproducts"



This site contains several pages to help beginning mushroom cultivators:

Grow Mushrooms At Home! has mushroom recipes and information about an amateur mushroom cultivators' group.

The Pink Oyster Mushroom page has instructions for growing mushrooms on growing kits you purchased.

How to make mushroom growing straw blocks is a page for cultivators who want to make their own growing kits.

You may view or print the one page sheet MUSHROOM KIT FAQS that we use at the Pacific Northwest Mushroom Festival in Lacey. FAQs mushroom kits

Successful growers will appreciate our MUSHROOM RECIPES page.

If you need dehydrated mushrooms and can't dry them yourself, we can deliver fresh mushrooms to a processor.
You may purchase them from the processor.  There are two businesses in Sequim with inspected kitchens and
processors licenses who are willing to do this.   Current demand for fresh mushrooms exceeds our ability to supply them.
  We hope to increase production so we can sell mushrooms retail to the public.   We have growing kits for sale:
  Blue cap oyster mushroom
Tree Oyster mushroom
Pink Oyster mushroom.

  
 




     We use a CARBON NEGATIVE ENERGY SOURCE here on the mushroom farm.   The main hardware is a top lit up draft furnace.  It is known by initials: t.l.u.d.
We call it a

T-LUD
which we pronounce:
Tee - lud
"Tee" rhymes with "we";  "lud" rhymes with "bud"




The t-lud works by mixing smoke from air starved fire with pre-heated air.   The inner cylinder holds wood.   Only 20% of the furnace's air is allowed to enter this primary combustion chamber.   80% is channeled between the steel and concrete cylinders, where it is pre-heated before being mixed with the smoky primary air.


This is the t-lud's nozzle.  It is held about 8" above the the primary air cylinder by 1/2" re-bars that protrude inside the concrete outer cylinder.   This allows the 80% of the air to mix at the top of the primary combustion area.


 



This view shows the underside of the nozzle and the shell that becomes the front of the concrete cylinder.


So what makes this carbon negative?

This is charcoal generated from one burn.
This by-product may be used to grill steak.
If not, it can be used to make bio-char.

When charcoal is used for bio-char, carbon is removed from the air and locked into soil.
To make bio-char, we soak powdered charcoal in leachate from red wiggler worm bins.

Bio-char makes up 20% of
Sequim Terra Preta
75% is worm castings.

How to acquire enough worm castings to make Sequim Terra Preta:

Do you have weeds from your garden, trimmings from vegetables in you kitchen, fruit that falls and is unused in your yard or orchard, old newspapers, egg shells, spent mushroom kits or other organic waste?

You can grow worms on what you normally throw away!
You can produce organic fertilizer when you control what goes into it.

Red Wiggler Composting Worms are for Sale on the Dietz Farm!



These red worms are used for kitchen composting.
They are Eisenia fetida (eye-SEN-ee-uh FE-ti-dah).
They are also called red worms, red wigglers or compost worms.
You may read or print the fact sheet: "kitchen composting with worm bins".
It is printer friendly and includes instructions to make an inexpensive worm bin.

Worms Only

We sell 500 Red Worms for $25 and 100 worms for $7.
  As soon as they are divided into batches, each batch is provided enough bedding, grit and food to stay healthy.



The formula is revealed:

 Sequim Terra Preta:
75% castings
20% bio-char
5% sand
We invite worm growers and gardeners to try this formula.  Let us know if it works for you.   If you improve on it, please tell us!



If you would like to purchase red worms, mushroom growing kits or mushrooms directly from us

phone 360-477-4228

This drawing of a happy red worm was contributed by our granddaughter, Emily.
 


Would you like worms as happy as the one in Emily's drawing?

Buy them a place to live.

Worm Bin Towers are available once again!


Would you like to use worms to compost left overs from your kitchen (potato peels, Banana skins, Bread crumbs, apple cores)?
We have worms on the Dietz Farm that are looking for new homes.
If you would like to employ these hard-working hermaphrodites but have no place to put them,  we can solve your problem with red worm condos.

These upward migrating bins feature a concrete filled base to prevent tipping.

The bottom bin collects leachate that may be used for plant food or to bio-charge charcoal.
A sheet of landscape fabric keeps the worms in the top three bins.

Empty bins are added as each bin fills.

Each container is drilled to accept a vent with a fine screen.

A vent in each bin provides fresh air while keeping worms in.


Each set of four bins includes concrete base.
If you request, we will include a gallon of biochar in the collector bin on the bottom.

$100

Price includes W.S.S.T. @ 8.6%

Phone 360-477-4228 to place your order.

Sorry, we don't ship these nor sell out of our area. You may e-mail us at this address:
e-mail address
Red worm emoticons also contributed by Emily.

Lowell and Audree Dietz are interior trim contractors.

We do carpentry in Sequim.