Photograph: Dan Kenyon for the Guardian
Series: Meet the producerPrevious | Index The mushroom manMeet the mushroom man: Cynan Jones of Snowdonia's The Mushroom Garden demystifies the art of cultivating mycelium
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Our fascination with mushrooms was born of an interest in foraging. Then, about eight years ago, a project was set up by the local council and Bangor University to find what wild produce could be grown here in north Wales. We started to explore the possibility of growing shiitake mushrooms and, after two years, we bought all the kit and carried on with the project ourselves.
The growing system is located in a yard we rent from the National Trust. It is based in two converted shipping containers and mimics the seasons with precisely controlled temperature, air flow and humidity levels. For the first part of the growing process we recreate the summer by keeping the container at 25C. The mushrooms are grown in bags of a substrate made from local oak chip and sawdust. The shiitake mycelium colonises the whole bag and binds everything together. I started out as a biochemist, so I understand the science of mushrooms …
To force the mushrooms to fruit, we then have to shock them into thinking winter is coming, so the bags are moved to the second container – "autumn" – which has a temperature of 15C, with 97% humidity, 12 hours of light and the air changed every 45 minutes. The mushrooms stay here for two weeks before being harvested.
We harvest twice a day, every day of the year, moving about 20 new boxes in and out of the containers and growing up to 100kg a week. The fresh mushrooms are then posted by overnight courier and delivered to customers the next day.
My son and daughter also work with us. We don't have much time off, but our holidays start at 6pm every evening with a glass of wine, when we start cooking.
