DANNY Starr stumbled into the mushroom industry almost by accident.
After a near-decade long career in the military came to a close in 2018, his transition into the civilian world led him down a few different career paths that, in his own words, left him feeling “lost”.
However, he always found happiness in the garden.
“I was kind of lost, just gardening and doing random things and I was watching (ABC TV’s) Gardening Australia one day and there was this girl in Tassie who was growing these pink oyster mushrooms,” Mr Starr said.
“I had never seen it before and she kind of described how she did it on a relatively small block and managed to make a bit an income from it.
It seemed quite basic enough in that you can learn it yourself, you don’t have to do courses on it… so I just did it out of interest because they were fascinating.”
A year and a half later, that fascination has sprouted into a small-scale production with Mr Starr’s venture, Barossa Gourmet Mushrooms, supplying his product to some of the Barossa Valley’s top restaurants, all from his Gawler East backyard.
Mr Starr has converted an old garage on his Blanch Street block into a small grow room, where he produces about 10 to 15 kilograms of different varieties of oyster mushrooms each week.
The garage had been a bit of a black hole for Mr Starr after he and partner Jess moved in, taking on many iterations before reaching its current purpose.
“It’s got a tin roof, it’s hot in summer and there’s nothing you can do with it,” he said.
“I tried to have guitars in there, I tried to have a little study desk and I was kind of like ‘what am I going to do with this space?’.
“Things started to click and so I did a little bit of research and had a crack trying to grow pink oyster mushrooms.”
With a surplus of stock from his first couple of batches, Mr Starr decided to have a crack at the local market scene to test the waters.
Setting up at the Mount Pleasant Farmers Market, the stock was gone in 30 minutes.
From there, the hobby turned into a passion, and soon enough Mr Starr had some of the region’s best chefs knocking down his door.
Starting off with a pink variety, he has since moved into growing pearl and golden oyster mushrooms.
In the future, he would like to attempt to grow medicinal-based mushrooms like lion’s mane.
But he has no plans to grow a traditional button mushroom.
Normal things don’t interest me, straight lines don’t interest me – it has to be wild and cool otherwise I don’t want to do it,” Mr Starr said.
His production is a little bit different to some of the bigger mushroom farms around the country, with a key focus on being environmentally-friendly and low-cost.
He buys his spores from a Queensland grower and sets them up in biodegradable bags mixed with straw that are hung from racks in the grow room.
Where a large-scale production would maintain a controlled climate through misters and foggers, Mr Starr sprays his mushrooms about three times a day with a hand-held hose.
This comes with its challenges of course, but as he says, he loves a challenge.
“I’ve learnt a lot about the absolute basic, low-tech way of growing mushrooms using nothing but your hands and mind,” he said.
“…I’ve still got a lot to learn but I have got a good idea now.”
Mr Starr has plans to expand Barossa Gourmet Mushrooms, taking his grow room out of his backyard and onto a slightly bigger scale but maintaining the same ethos and techniques to ensure the human element is still present in his growing.
To keep up with Mr Starr and any developments, head to the Barossa Gourmet Mushrooms Facebook or Instagram page.
