Foraging and Mushroom Growing Workshop, Northallerton
About this Event
Learn to forage for wild foods, enjoy a foraged lunch, and learn practical mushroom-growing skills, including creating your own oyster mushroom growing bucket to take home!
Join James from The Forager Within and Tracy from Forage Yourself Happy for a hands-on day exploring wild food and low-tech mushroom cultivation.
Whether you're new to foraging, curious about growing mushrooms, love nature or are simply looking for a unique experience day in nature, you'll love this and leave with new knowledge, practical skills, and your own oyster mushroom growing bucket ready to fruit.
Children under 12 come free (within reason, and please let me know in advance).
What to expect
Morning Foraging Session (10:00am - 12:00 pm)
The day kicks off with a brief introduction to the day ahead, and then a 2-hour guided foraging walk (covering 1 to 2 miles), stopping regularly to discuss (and where possible, eat!) the many edible goodies we find along the way, whether that be foliage, flowers, fruits, nuts, and of course mushrooms! What we’ll find depends on mother nature, but she's normally kind and generous at this time of year! The route is mostly flat and we go at a slow and steady pace.
The main focus will be foraging for wild food, but we will also touch upon medicinal or “bushcraft” uses if relevant to what we find, and when we find our first mushroom we will also lay the foundations for the mushroom growing part of the workshop by introducing you to the fascinating world of fungi!
The foraging itself will include:
- Finding and discussing around 10 - 15 species common across the UK.
- How to identify the species we come across.
- Information about toxic species to avoid.
- Foraging laws and principles to ensure you forage legally, safely and responsibly.
- Trying a couple of pre-prepared wild food-based samples!
Lunch (approx.12:00 pm - 1:00 pm)
We will enjoy a simple but delicious lunch showcasing foraged ingredients. This will be two courses and we will enjoy this in a nice garden area with garden benches and camping chairs to sit on.
We can accommodate gluten-free, vegan, and a few other dietary requirements. Please respond to my confirmation email closer to the course date with your specific dietary needs.
After a delicious taste of the wild lunch, the learning continues in the afternoon but this time we turn our attention to introducing you to growing mushrooms!
Mushroom Growing Workshop (1:00pm - 3:00pm)
This afternoon session will include:
- An explanation of the mushroom growing cycle, the role of mycelium in nature, and how mushrooms colonise organic materials.
- Basic mushroom cloning techniques and how to grow mushrooms at home using low-tech methods.
- Building your own Oyster Mushroom Bucket using straw and colonised grain spawn! This will include teaching you how to prepare and layer your substrate, the conditions needed for successful growth, how to care for your bucket at home, and how to encourage successful fruiting.
No specialist equipment required and all materials are provided.
Oyster mushrooms are one of the easiest and most reliable mushrooms for beginners, making them the perfect introduction to home cultivation.
Log in to nature
Humans have been foraging as a way to survive for hundreds of thousands of years. Before farming, this was how we survived – finding what nature provided in harmony with the seasons and the land. This period before farming forms over 95 per cent of our existence as a species, so to our brains and bodies, wild food foraging feels incredibly natural – which is one of the reasons it feels so good!
Foraging is one of the best ways to disconnect from our busy modern lives of emails, social media and technology, and reconnect with nature and our ancestral roots. During our foraging walk and mushroom growing workshop, we will log off from the modern world and log in to nature!
Meeting point and parking
For this course we will make use of a private farm location – Avenue Farm, Boroughbridge Road, DL7 9EP – though please note that following this postcode on Sat Navs or Google Maps won’t take you precisely to Avenue Farm, so please use below Google Maps “dropped pin” location instead if you can:
There is space to park at the farm itself, and I will advise on your arrival exactly where to park. I will be waiting at the farm from 9:45 AM.
I recommend you bring
- Comfortable, weather-appropriate clothing and footwear. Parts of the route during the morning foraging walk may be muddy and most of it will involve walking on grass which could be wet (e.g. morning dew or if it has been/is raining), so please ensure you have appropriate footwear – I would highly recommend sturdy and waterproof walking/hiking shoes so as to avoid wet socks and be able to navigate the terrain comfortably.
- Your phone, but only for the camera function, should you wish to take any photos/videos/notes. I will, however, send an email at the end of the course with a list of the species we come across, along with information and guides relating to the mushroom growing.
- Some water or another hydrating drink if you wish. Some refreshments are provided at lunch however.
About us
The Forager Within, founded by James Hill, runs public and private foraging courses across Yorkshire and Manchester. His love of foraging started on nature walks with his parents, where picking wild food was just a way of life. In adulthood, James hit a low point in 2015, which re-ignited a passion for foraging. By the Spring of 2016, foraging was a hobby, an obsession, and then in 2022, a business with a mission to connect people to nature and improve physical and mental health in the process.
Tracy from Forage Yourself Happy is a qualified teacher, sylvotherapy practitioner, forager and mushroom enthusiast helping people reconnect with nature through practical, hands-on experiences. She is also a mushroom farmer and medicinal mushroom practitioner.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
GBP 96.00
