Growing your own mushrooms with Hexering

Super local, convenient, almost organic, fun to watch and to experience. The tomato plant from Gaby van der Harg of Farmzy meets all the market trends: you can grow it at home and it’s easy to do, the plant is environmentally friendly, and an organic version is in the works. In 2017, Farmzy sold the first 100,000 tomato plants via the flower auction. In 2018, they’ll expand with a product that offers even more experience: the Hexering, mushroom growing sets whose Dutch name refers to the fairy rings that have fascinated mankind for thousands of years.

The product, which can be grown at home, is just as easy to use as the tomato plant. Gaby: “The set smells like mushrooms before they start growing. It contains a substrate grafted with chestnut mushrooms. As soon as the substrate is covered with earth, and water is added, the mushrooms start to grow,” Gaby explains. “After 10 to 14 days they start budding, and then the fun really starts. Within a few days, the chestnut mushrooms can be harvested, but you can also continue to grow them, so you’ll have larger mushrooms. The mushrooms in the set grow a bit less quickly than those of professional growers, but that’s only favourable to the flavour. The slower growth results in a more flavourful product.”

“In total, it’s possible to harvest a set about three times, and it’s about 700 grams of chestnut mushrooms in total. The first harvest is the largest, the two harvests after that are smaller because more food is taken from the substrate each time. Once Hexering’s substrate is exhausted, the consumer will be left with decent earth to fertilise garden or house plants.”

Jaco Vreeman from Growup concepts is the developer and owner of Hexering. Greenzer produces the product with the help of social capital for people distanced from the labour market. Farmzy markets the product. Homegrown fresh produce has a diverse sales area. Hexering is interesting to gardening centres, flower shops and fresh produce specialists and supermarkets.