Shiitake Mama Mushrooms

We began growing shiitake mushrooms on hardwood logs in the mid-1980s and incorporated as Lost Creek Mushroom Farm in 1992. Oklahoma wasn't the market we'd hoped for fresh shiitakes, and we reinvented our business as a line of grow-your-own mushroom log kits, shiitake mushroom soups and dips, t-shirts, fresh shiitakes, dried shiitakes, and gift baskets.

We are volunteer trainers with USAiD agencies and on our own. We have worked with mushroom farmers in Ghana in West Africa, Malawi in southeastern Africa, and India, teaching and learning about growing mushrooms and transferring mushroom production technologies. We've participated in international conferences abroad to learn about medicinal mushrooms and build community with growers and researchers.

Our first volunteer assignment was in Ghana, West Africa, in 2007. We saw that it takes very little to make a big difference for people, especially women, who were hungry and too poor to pay their children’s school fees. We started Mushrooms in Ghana Project to help expand the mushroom industry.

Later, we created Mushrooms for Well Being Foundation to promote public education, mushroom consumption and small-scale mushroom production worldwide. Please visit our foundation’s website. You can make a donation that makes a difference right on this page!

Now in our 70's we are reinventing ourselves again, this time in the direction of medicinal mushrooms, and encouraging people to eat more mushrooms and eat more kinds of mushrooms. Doug is expanding his mushroom operation to include medicinals: oyster mushrooms, lion's mane, turkey tail, and reishi (Ganoderma lucidum) along with our amazing shiitakes. Shiitake Mama is channeling the mushrooms and writing articles and books to connect people, animals and agriculture with the health and healing power of mushrooms.