The family farm – called Timber Farms – dates back three generations and is in the Big Springs region of the southern Missouri Ozarks. This truly wild and beautiful area abounds with vast tracts of oak forest, clear springs, caves, and sparkling streams. The humid microclimate and oak/hickory forest along Sinking Creek, which runs through the Hellmuth’s farm, provides ideal conditions and substrates for cultivating shiitake mushrooms. By blending Ozark ingenuity, traditional Japanese techniques, evidence-based sustainability philosophies, and a lot of hard work, they have expanded the shiitake production to over 25,000 logs. Believe it or not – they grow many of their mushrooms in a converted carriage house in the Central West End.
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