Well! We are selling FAST! Today we had our first stall at the delightful Cliftonville Farmers Market, on their 21st birthday, and we sold out within an hour! We are so chuffed, but sorry to disappoint those who were a bit late. We will do our best to have more stock next month :) It was also wonderful to meet several of our backers today. That was a real treat to see the people who helped us so very much. Onwards and upwards - come and see us next month for fresh mushrooms and your very own grow bags!

Now that the shed is done, we're just waiting on the air-con which is going in on the 11th August and a bit of plumbing and we will be fully functional at last :) Anyone want to help us with the plumbing? It's not hard, and I'm sure we can work it out, but if anyone wants to volunteer to give us a hand.... We'd be super-appreciative! Please contact me on darryn@mifoodbank.org if you can help. In the meantime we have started phase 2 in the background - this is the cottage industry home-working side of things. Recipes are being devised and shelf life of preserves being tested. We have been growing mushrooms but are not 100% happy with them yet - they're not in ideal conditions yet so are a little wonky. One of the MANY amazing thing about mushrooms is the learning cycle is only a few weeks, not a whole season as with most vegetables - so we have all been learning MUCH and enjoying watching them grow despite wonkiness. Love, Darryn, Tilly, Georgia and Phil.

Internal walls done, electrics going in and the between-container lean-to almost done too! Well done to Georgia, Til and Jack the electrician for getting us close to the end. We have been growing in my old home set-up, however, as we couldn't wait! Updates soon on those.

And so they start! What we're seeing here is called "pinning" - this is the start of a lovely big bunch of mushrooms!

So, we are THIS CLOSE to starting to grow! Georgia (on the right) has joined the team, and Matt (left) and Colin (not pictured) have been doing sterling work building our internal walls and laying floors and are now building the lean-to. I predict we will start incubating our first crop - TODAY! Woohoo! It's taken some time but we are finally there. We have a few more things to complete in the fruiting room, but we have about 14 days to get that done while the mushrooms are busy colonising the substrate in the incubation room. This is an experimental learning batch we will be starting today, but we are hoping it will be successful and we will have something to show for it in about 5 weeks time. And in this hot weather, we are seeing the benefit of having the very well insulated containers - it's such a steady temperature inside. Just what we need. :) Wish us luck!

I'd also like to introduce Tilly Abrams, our new Farm Manager - Tilly's the one in the red :) We have now got just about everything we need to get going- we took good advantage of the Dreamland and Debenhams auctions to fit ourselves out on the cheap with things like sinks (lordy was THAT a job to clean!) and work surfaces, and Daisy's (new cocktail bar in Margate, opening this weekend!) donated a fridge. So we are chomping at the bit!!!!! Happy weekends everyone! Best Darryn

It's been a bit slow, I fully realise, but anyone in Thanet can appreciate the extreme shortage (and thorough lack of reliability) of trades people! Our biggest hurdle has been finding a carpenter to build the stud walls we can go no further without. However, wood has now been delivered and people have been on site wielding Saws and Other Woodworking Tools. So there is real hope that this phase will be finished soonest and then we get to the finessing part. But we can actually start incubating our first batch in the Incubation room while we finish off the Fruiting room as we will have a good two to three weeks to get that done before we need to move things into the fruiting room. Onwards!

So we now have all the basic structures of what we need, so just waiting for water and power now before we can start intensive cleaning and the small amounts of building work that needs to be done. It's all coming together! I'm also LOVING being around all this big machinery...

Hi everyone! Can you believe the containers have actually been delivered!!! I almost need to pinch myself that this is becoming reality. The next step is to fit them out and make them ready - they're already insulated (the benefit of buying ex-refridgerated ones) but need a bit of practical work done. I think we should re-do some of the sealant, we need to build a vestibule (sort of air-lock type thing) in one, and I think both floors need to be changed so they are sweepable. As they are they can only be jet-washed. And then we need to put in lights and ventilation. So we are going to need some help with handy, practical skills - carpentry, general building, minor plumbing and anyone with knowledge of solar and wind power would be really useful. If you can help, hit me up on darryn@mifoodbank.org. Woohoo!!!