Jacq Davis has cracked the code. After over six years of toiling in the desert, they’ve created an “edible landscape,” a lush permaculture garden oasis known as Epic Yard Farm in Tempe, Arizona where food is grown year-round.
Jacq Davis has cracked the code. After over six years of toiling in the desert, they’ve created an “edible landscape,” a lush permaculture garden oasis known as Epic Yard Farm in Tempe, Arizona where food is grown year-round.
The garden at Epic Yard Farm in Tempe, Arizona.
Nate: Hello! Please tell me a little about yourself and Epic Yard Farm.
Jacq: Hi, my name is Jacq Davis (she/her/hers, they/them/theirs). My husband and I were full time RVing for a few years and decided to settle down in Arizona. We learned gardening through the permaculture principal and natural gardening methods when we first got into it back in 2013, at the first house we purchased in Tempe, Arizona. We did not want to waste water on a grass lawn and wanted to use the precious water and space for growing our own food. We have always loved the idea of mimicking nature and gardens with as little intervention as possible and so permaculture resonated with us. As we have learned through growing over the years, we have really become comfortable with growing in the arid and extreme climate of Arizona. In May of 2019, we came across a much larger property that we could not pass up, and it is where we have moved in and started building our new food forest in this forever home of ours.
Nate: Hello! Please tell me a little about yourself and Epic Yard Farm.
Jacq: Hi, my name is Jacq Davis (she/her/hers, they/them/theirs). My husband and I were full time RVing for a few years and decided to settle down in Arizona. We learned gardening through the permaculture principal and natural gardening methods when we first got into it back in 2013, at the first house we purchased in Tempe, Arizona. We did not want to waste water on a grass lawn and wanted to use the precious water and space for growing our own food.
Jacq Davis putting together a mushroom bed.
Nate: Hello! Please tell me a little about yourself and Epic Yard Farm.
Jacq: Hi, my name is Jacq Davis (she/her/hers, they/them/theirs). My husband and I were full time RVing for a few years and decided to settle down in Arizona. We learned gardening through the permaculture principal and natural gardening methods when we first got into it back in 2013, at the first house we purchased in Tempe, Arizona. We did not want to waste water on a grass lawn and wanted to use the precious water and space for growing our own food. We have always loved the idea of mimicking nature and gardens with as little intervention as possible and so permaculture resonated with us. As we have learned through growing over the years, we have really become comfortable with growing in the arid and extreme climate of Arizona. In May of 2019, we came across a much larger property that we could not pass up, and it is where we have moved in and started building our new food forest in this forever home of ours.
Jacq Davis putting together a mushroom bed.
We have always loved the idea of mimicking nature and gardens with as little intervention as possible and so permaculture resonated with us. As we have learned through growing over the years, we have really become comfortable with growing in the arid and extreme climate of Arizona. In May of 2019, we came across a much larger property that we could not pass up, and it is where we have moved in and started building our new food forest in this forever home of ours.
A Wine Cap mushroom with visible mycelium at the base of the stipe.
Nate: It definitely seems like y’all are succeeding in your food-sustainability goals. What do you two love to do besides grow your own food?
Jacq: I am a freelance graphic/web designer and my husband is a software engineer/architect. We started our two YouTube channels Epic Yard Farm and J2D Makes recently to share with others our passion for gardening and our DIY projects from our workshop. We also adopted our dog, Zyra, last summer and she is an important part of our J2D household and great helper in Epic Yard Farm.
Nate: Wow, power couple! Even though gardening is popular, folks don’t often know you can cultivate your own mushrooms as well. What inspired you to start growing mushrooms in your garden?
A Wine Cap mushroom with visible mycelium at the base of the stipe.
Nate: It definitely seems like y’all are succeeding in your food-sustainability goals. What do you two love to do besides grow your own food?
Jacq: I am a freelance graphic/web designer and my husband is a software engineer/architect. We started our two YouTube channels Epic Yard Farm and J2D Makes recently to share with others our passion for gardening and our DIY projects from our workshop. We also adopted our dog, Zyra, last summer and she is an important part of our J2D household and great helper in Epic Yard Farm.
Nate: Wow, power couple! Even though gardening is popular, folks don’t often know you can cultivate your own mushrooms as well. What inspired you to start growing mushrooms in your garden?
Jacq: North Spore YouTube videos actually! And after watching Fantastic Fungi. And I have seen a couple other Arizona gardeners have success growing blue oyster mushrooms under their citrus trees in the last few years. The mycelial network is extremely important for a healthy food forest, so it seemed like a perfect fit to try and figure out a way to integrate mushroom growing into our edible landscape.
Nate: Well, we are honored to be an inspiration. Which types of mushrooms have you grown and do you have any preferences for spawn type? Are there any that you really focus on?
Jacq: So far, I have only grown Blue Oyster mushrooms and Wine Cap mushrooms. I liked both the grain and sawdust spawn. They are really easy to handle and work with. Since I prefer growing mushrooms in our backyard garden, the grain and sawdust spawn are what works well for us. I am looking forward to trying a few other heat loving types.
Jacq: North Spore YouTube videos actually! And after watching Fantastic Fungi. And I have seen a couple other Arizona gardeners have success growing blue oyster mushrooms under their citrus trees in the last few years. The mycelial network is extremely important for a healthy food forest, so it seemed like a perfect fit to try and figure out a way to integrate mushroom growing into our edible landscape.
Nate: Well, we are honored to be an inspiration. Which types of mushrooms have you grown and do you have any preferences for spawn type? Are there any that you really focus on?
Jacq: So far, I have only grown Blue Oyster mushrooms and Wine Cap mushrooms. I liked both the grain and sawdust spawn. They are really easy to handle and work with. Since I prefer growing mushrooms in our backyard garden, the grain and sawdust spawn are what works well for us. I am looking forward to trying a few other heat loving types.
Nate: We are excited to see how mushroom projects at Epic Yard Farm expand. So, as a Mainer I have to ask: how do you like living in Arizona? Describe to us Tempe’s climate and weather and how, if at all, it affects when during the year you can grow mushrooms. Is it difficult to keep your mushrooms hydrated and shaded?
Jacq: We love living here in Arizona. It is sunny ALMOST always! Tempe is interesting because it has a mix of mostly urban settings but a few pockets of small agricultural zoned properties mixed in. It is typical of low desert in zone 9b. In recent years, we have not had very good monsoon seasons, so we have been very dry and hot. Winter has gotten a bit drier and colder also. These extremes don’t seem to be ideal for mushroom growing, but we are determined to try and see how we could provide microclimates within our garden to grow mushrooms. The dry wind does cause the mushroom to dry up before they gain too much in size for us, so we want to see what more we can do to trap moisture for the mushroom beds. So far, I have used natural shade from citrus trees. I think I am going to try using shade cloth for one of the new mushroom beds that I am building for this summer. The Arizona sun will burn up the mushroom fruiting body too quickly.
A harvest of fresh vegetables and Wine Cap mushrooms.
Nate: We are excited to see how mushroom projects at Epic Yard Farm expand. So, as a Mainer I have to ask: how do you like living in Arizona? Describe to us Tempe’s climate and weather and how, if at all, it affects when during the year you can grow mushrooms. Is it difficult to keep your mushrooms hydrated and shaded?
A harvest of fresh vegetables and Wine Cap mushrooms.
Jacq: We love living here in Arizona. It is sunny ALMOST always! Tempe is interesting because it has a mix of mostly urban settings but a few pockets of small agricultural zoned properties mixed in. It is typical of low desert in zone 9b. In recent years, we have not had very good monsoon seasons, so we have been very dry and hot. Winter has gotten a bit drier and colder also. These extremes don’t seem to be ideal for mushroom growing, but we are determined to try and see how we could provide microclimates within our garden to grow mushrooms. The dry wind does cause the mushroom to dry up before they gain too much in size for us, so we want to see what more we can do to trap moisture for the mushroom beds. So far, I have used natural shade from citrus trees. I think I am going to try using shade cloth for one of the new mushroom beds that I am building for this summer. The Arizona sun will burn up the mushroom fruiting body too quickly.
Nate: There are so many different ways of growing mushrooms outside. Can you share the different methods you’ve tried and anything you’ve learned along the way?
Jacq: So far, we have tried only one method, and that is to spread the spawn in compost and wood chips under large citrus trees. The “skirt” of the citrus tree provides a nice shady area and traps humidity naturally for the mushrooms to grow. But we have also taken some Wine Cap mycelium threads and put them in our raised garden beds and there are signs of a great mycelium network building from the Wine Cap.
Nate: That sounds like a perfect little ecosystem for your mushrooms. How do you care for your projects during incubation?
Jacq: I make sure the wood chip / compost mixture is moist most of the time by running irrigation regularly to the trees.
A cluster of Blue Oyster mushrooms growing in compost and wood chips.
A cluster of Blue Oyster mushrooms growing in compost and wood chips.
A cluster of Blue Oyster mushrooms growing in compost and wood chips.
A cluster of Blue Oyster mushrooms growing in compost and wood chips.
A cluster of Blue Oyster mushrooms growing in compost and wood chips.
A cluster of Blue Oyster mushrooms growing in compost and wood chips.
A Wine Cap mushroom growing in compost and wood chips.
A Wine Cap mushroom growing in compost and wood chips.
A Wine Cap mushroom growing in compost and wood chips.
A Wine Cap mushroom growing in compost and wood chips.
Dry Wine Cap mushrooms a bit past their prime stage for harvesting.
Nate: How long did it take for your projects to fruit?
Jacq: I feel terrible, because I thought it was a fun experiment. But with so little rain that we had over the winter, I did not check the mushroom beds as often as I should. But when I finally noticed the first flush of Blue Oyster Mushrooms under our citrus tree, it was a little over two months from when I first inoculated the beds. The Wine Cap took about 4 months, but again, that is when I first noticed the mushrooms, which were all dried out, so they probably came up a little sooner than that.
Nate: Those timeframes are pretty typical for mushroom beds, and it's awesome that they still fruited even in those circumstances! Mushroom growing is always a learning experience, and at least this next time you will know to keep an eye on the beds and be sure they are hydrated. So, what are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future?
Jacq: I will be building a steer manure/compost/wood chip bed for growing Almond Agaricus Mushroom. And I will be setting up a straw bed in and among my two asparagus raised beds for growing Pink Oyster and Golden Oyster mushrooms. I plan to continue the experiment on growing mushrooms outdoors in our garden to see what is the easiest and most passive way to grow and harvest them in our arid low desert climate.
Nate: How long did it take for your projects to fruit?
Dry Wine Cap mushrooms a bit past their prime stage for harvesting.
Jacq: I feel terrible, because I thought it was a fun experiment. But with so little rain that we had over the winter, I did not check the mushroom beds as often as I should. But when I finally noticed the first flush of Blue Oyster Mushrooms under our citrus tree, it was a little over two months from when I first inoculated the beds. The Wine Cap took about 4 months, but again, that is when I first noticed the mushrooms, which were all dried out, so they probably came up a little sooner than that.
Nate: Those timeframes are pretty typical for mushroom beds, and it's awesome that they still fruited even in those circumstances! Mushroom growing is always a learning experience, and at least this next time you will know to keep an eye on the beds and be sure they are hydrated. So, what are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future?
Jacq: I will be building a steer manure/compost/wood chip bed for growing Almond Agaricus Mushroom. And I will be setting up a straw bed in and among my two asparagus raised beds for growing Pink Oyster and Golden Oyster mushrooms. I plan to continue the experiment on growing mushrooms outdoors in our garden to see what is the easiest and most passive way to grow and harvest them in our arid low desert climate.
Nate: From your website it seems that you work on your projects with your husband. Does he help with your mushroom grows as well? Do you both devote most of your time to your garden?
Nate: From your website it seems that you work on your projects with your husband. Does he help with your mushroom grows as well? Do you both devote most of your time to your garden?
Jacq: He usually only helps me build structures and hardware for the garden. I manage the garden pretty much all by myself. I have fortunately figured out a way to garden with very little intervention most of the time, so I actually don’t spend a lot of time in the garden. The process is usually: plant, let irrigation do its work, and wait for harvest. Because of the permaculture and natural gardening method, we have built a pretty balanced ecosystem that pests and beneficial wildlife seems to take care of each other.
Nate: The perfect set up. Have you found other mushroom growers in Tempe? Do you ever forage?
Jacq: I have not met any other mushroom growers in Tempe, but I have been following and know of Kori Adkins in Phoenix since we started gardening. I have not had the chance to forage for mushrooms yet, but would LOVE to go on a hunt with the local mushroom foragers one of these days.
Raised asparagus beds mulched with straw for growing Golden Oysters.
An Almond Agaricus bed with steer manure, compost, straw, and wood chips as substrate.
Jacq: He usually only helps me build structures and hardware for the garden. I manage the garden pretty much all by myself. I have fortunately figured out a way to garden with very little intervention most of the time, so I actually don’t spend a lot of time in the garden. The process is usually: plant, let irrigation do its work, and wait for harvest. Because of the permaculture and natural gardening method, we have built a pretty balanced ecosystem that pests and beneficial wildlife seems to take care of each other.
Raised asparagus beds mulched with straw for growing Golden Oysters.
An Almond Agaricus bed with steer manure, compost, straw, and wood chips as substrate.
Nate: The perfect set up. Have you found other mushroom growers in Tempe? Do you ever forage?
Jacq: I have not met any other mushroom growers in Tempe, but I have been following and know of Kori Adkins in Phoenix since we started gardening. I have not had the chance to forage for mushrooms yet, but would LOVE to go on a hunt with the local mushroom foragers one of these days.
A dish containing cooked Wine Cap mushrooms.
Nate: You’ll have to keep us updated on what it’s like foraging in Arizona! We know it’s hard to choose, but do you have a favorite mushroom and why?
Jacq: My favorite mushroom to eat has been the King Oyster because of its meatiness for cooking. But the Wine Cap I have grown and harvested recently is a strong second. I am looking forward to growing lots of Wine Cap so I can eat more!
Nate: One of the most satisfying parts of growing mushrooms is finally getting to eat them! How do you like to prepare your harvests?
Jacq: I love cooking mushrooms in all kinds of dishes. But my favorite way to prepare my harvests so far is sautéd with EVOO and ghee plus salt and pepper till they caramelize so I can taste the flavor of the shrooms.
A dish containing cooked Wine Cap mushrooms.
Nate: You’ll have to keep us updated on what it’s like foraging in Arizona! We know it’s hard to choose, but do you have a favorite mushroom and why?
Jacq: My favorite mushroom to eat has been the King Oyster because of its meatiness for cooking. But the Wine Cap I have grown and harvested recently is a strong second. I am looking forward to growing lots of Wine Cap so I can eat more!
Nate: One of the most satisfying parts of growing mushrooms is finally getting to eat them! How do you like to prepare your harvests?
Jacq: I love cooking mushrooms in all kinds of dishes. But my favorite way to prepare my harvests so far is sautéd with EVOO and ghee plus salt and pepper till they caramelize so I can taste the flavor of the shrooms.
Nate: Ok, well now I’m hungry. Do you have any advice you’d like to share with folks who are curious about growing or are just getting started? Particularly for those who are growing in the desert?
Nate: Ok, well now I’m hungry. Do you have any advice you’d like to share with folks who are curious about growing or are just getting started? Particularly for those who are growing in the desert?
Jacq: Keep an open mind and don’t let failures stop you. Knowing the sun’s path through the year for your property and garden is extremely important to figure out the microclimate zones before planning out where you want to plan for each season. There are a couple of phone apps that allow you to see that without having to sit and watch the sun for a whole year before you can figure it out.
Nate: Symbolically speaking, which mushroom do you think you would be and why?
Jacq: I think I would be Shiitake, because of how versatile it is in being adapted in different recipes and uses.
Nate: That sounds right to me considering you’ve created a desert oasis! Talk about versatile and adaptable.
A harvest of fresh vegetables and Blue Oyster mushrooms.
Jacq: Keep an open mind and don’t let failures stop you. Knowing the sun’s path through the year for your property and garden is extremely important to figure out the microclimate zones before planning out where you want to plan for each season. There are a couple of phone apps that allow you to see that without having to sit and watch the sun for a whole year before you can figure it out.
Nate: Symbolically speaking, which mushroom do you think you would be and why?
A harvest of fresh vegetables and Blue Oyster mushrooms.
Jacq: I think I would be Shiitake, because of how versatile it is in being adapted in different recipes and uses.
Nate: That sounds right to me considering you’ve created a desert oasis! Talk about versatile and adaptable.
Check out Jacq's video where she makes a straw bed for Pink and Golden Oysters in raised asparagus beds!
And their video on making an Almond Agaricus bed with manure, compost, straw, and wood chips!
Check out Jacq's video where she makes a straw bed for Pink and Golden Oysters in raised asparagus beds!
And their video on making an Almond Agaricus bed with manure, compost, straw, and wood chips!