Why Far West Fungi Operates Two Mushroom Farms in Northern California
San Martin sits in Santa Clara County, south of San Jose, where the valley floor opens into agricultural land before the hills rise toward Gilroy. The climate here runs warmer and drier than the coastal fog belt around Moss Landing, and that difference shaped why we built a facility in San Martin in the first place. Moss Landing gave Far West Fungi its start and its coastal growing method, developed over four decades along the Monterey Bay coastline. San Martin gave us a second location built around engineered climate control rather than marine humidity, and the two facilities have worked as complements ever since.
Santa Clara County offered practical advantages beyond climate. The county sits close enough to San Francisco and the greater Bay Area that delivery windows stay short, which matters for species that lose quality within days of harvest. San Martin's growing rooms were designed from the outset to hold precise humidity and temperature regardless of what the valley was doing outside, giving us a stable production environment that Moss Landing's coastal conditions were never built to replicate. What San Martin does not replace is the coastal growing method itself. Moss Landing continues to lean on its fog belt humidity for the species suited to it, while San Martin extends the operation into a second climate entirely.
Why a Second Facility
Specialty mushroom species each require their own narrow band of temperature, humidity, and airflow to fruit consistently, and no single facility can hold every one of those conditions at scale across every week of the year. Moss Landing's coastal humidity shifts with the seasons, rising and falling with the fog belt's own rhythm, which works well for the species that evolved to expect that variability. Other species need conditions that stay constant regardless of season, and building that consistency into a coastal facility would mean fighting the very climate that made Moss Landing viable in the first place.
San Martin closes that gap. Its growing rooms hold temperature and humidity within a narrow, engineered range year-round, independent of Santa Clara County's own weather outside the walls. That stability lets us run production schedules for species that need consistency rather than variability, and it lets us supply restaurants and retail partners with a steady weekly volume rather than a harvest that swells and shrinks with the seasons. Bay Area chefs planning a menu two months out need to know a species will be available in February the same way it was available in September, and a single coastal facility working with natural humidity cycles cannot make that guarantee across every species we grow.
The result is a two-facility model rather than a single farm trying to do everything at once. Moss Landing handles what its coastal climate does well. San Martin handles year-round volume and the species that depend on stable, controlled conditions rather than a fog belt's seasonal shifts. Together they cover more of the calendar, more of the species we cultivate, and give us the ability to continue refining difficult varieties like Maitake while maintaining the consistent supply our chefs, retailers, and customers have come to expect.
The Cultivation Process at San Martin
Cultivation at San Martin begins in the laboratory, where our culture collection serves as the foundation for every mushroom we grow. Each strain is maintained as a pure culture under sterile conditions, carefully preserved, monitored, and propagated to ensure genetic consistency and vigor. Protecting these cultures is one of the most important parts of our operation—a single contaminated culture can compromise months of production, while a healthy culture library allows us to continually refine and improve the quality, yield, and performance of each species.
Once a culture has been verified as healthy and contamination-free, it is expanded under sterile conditions and used to inoculate sawdust spawn. This spawn becomes the living foundation for production, carrying vigorous, healthy mycelium into sterilized hardwood sawdust blocks where it can establish itself and begin colonization. Every stage is carefully managed to protect the integrity of the culture and give the mycelium the best possible start.
After inoculation, the blocks spend several weeks in colonization rooms where the mycelium spreads throughout the substrate, transforming it into a dense network of fungal tissue. Once fully colonized, the blocks are transferred into environmentally controlled fruiting rooms where temperature, humidity, fresh air exchange, and carbon dioxide levels are tailored to the needs of each individual species.
San Martin's greatest advantage is the precision with which these environments can be managed. That control allows our cultivation team to fine-tune growing conditions for challenging species, evaluate how different strains perform, and continually improve production through careful observation and refinement. The facility is more than a production farm—it is a place where cultivation techniques are continuously tested, measured, and improved.
Every growing room is inspected daily by experienced cultivators. While automated systems maintain the environmental conditions, it is the knowledge of our team—combined with more than four decades of mushroom-growing experience—that determines when adjustments should be made. This combination of laboratory science, carefully maintained cultures, precise environmental control, and hands-on cultivation allows Far West Fungi to consistently produce premium-quality mushrooms while continually refining the strains and growing methods that support our future.
The Species Mix at San Martin
While Moss Landing remains the heart of Far West Fungi's large-scale production, San Martin was designed to give us something different: the ability to focus on specialty and gourmet mushroom varieties that require greater environmental precision and dedicated growing space.
Species such as Maitake (Hen of the Woods), Pioppini, Cinnamon Caps, King Trumpets, Black Pearl, and Pink Oysters each have their own unique cultivation requirements. Many are less forgiving than our staple production mushrooms, demanding tighter control over temperature, humidity, fresh air exchange, and timing to consistently produce premium-quality harvests. By dedicating San Martin to these specialty varieties, our cultivation team can fine-tune each growing cycle, evaluate individual strains, and continue improving quality without disrupting the high-volume production taking place at Moss Landing.
This two-facility approach allows each farm to play to its strengths. Moss Landing provides the consistent, large-scale production of the core mushrooms that supply our retail stores, farmers markets, and wholesale customers. San Martin serves as our specialty cultivation facility—a place where we can grow unique gourmet mushrooms, refine challenging species like Maitake, and expand our offerings with new and exciting varieties.
Together, the two farms give Far West Fungi the flexibility to produce both the dependable staples our customers expect and the distinctive specialty mushrooms that inspire chefs, retailers, and home cooks alike.
What This Means for the Customer
Year-round supply is the practical result of running two facilities built around different climates. A Bay Area chef or a home cook shopping at our San Francisco or Santa Cruz stores can expect Lion's Mane or King Trumpet to be available in January the same way it is in July, rather than watching a favorite species disappear for months at a time. Consistent quality follows from the same source: sterilized substrate, pure culture spawn, and daily hands-on monitoring produce a more predictable harvest than a growing process left to run on its own.
Every mushroom that leaves San Martin traces back to a specific batch, substrate run, and growing room, which means provenance is not a marketing claim here so much as a byproduct of how the facility is run. If you want to see what a controlled, traceable growing process looks like on the plate, our fresh mushroom catalog reflects this week's San Martin harvest, and our dried mushroom offerings preserve the same species for cooking on your own schedule.
