Winesburg Mushrooms began as an idea between Clifford Doebel and Jason Holcomb. Cliff and Jason discussed many different means to expand Doebel’s Flowers and the idea of growing mushrooms was a topic they both revisited the most. Growing mushrooms was a familiar topic to Cliff as both his Uncle Carl and his wife’s father, Kenneth Kuns, had also researched the idea of growing mushrooms. Erica Holcomb, Jason’s wife and Cliff’s daughter, also loved the idea of growing mushrooms for the many health benefits as she enjoys nutrition and cooking.
In the next several months, Jason and Erica continued their sign business, Industrial Image, and began researching and purchasing materials needed to grow mushrooms. In February of 2013, Cliff passed away and much of the work towards learning to grow mushrooms ceased. After several months, the idea of growing mushrooms was revisted. It was a difficult subject for Erica, yet she wanted to pursue this goal as she believed it would make her father proud.
Nearing the fall of 2013, Jason began having success after many months of testing. In a computer-controlled room inside Industrial Image, Jason was able to successfully grow oyster mushrooms. With success, there were also many frustrations. Jason and Erica discussed the problems they were facing and decided to build a new, more improved room. This new room would be larger, with better lighting, ventilation and floor drains.
Every day and night was filled with tasks from working on the new room to working on signs, but this did not mean there was not time for family! Family times were sometimes for fun and sometimes for work. Jessica and Jasmine, ages 8 & 9, enjoyed being a part of their mom and dad’s work and helped as they were able. But mostly, they were looking forward to helping to pick and sell the mushrooms in the future. So from building to growing, the girls learned there was a time for work and a time for play. The building process may have taken a little longer this way, but keeping the girls involved was very important to Jason and Erica.
Spring of 2015 was the time to get back to growing mushrooms again as the new grow room was finally complete. After several successful, but small crops of mushrooms, Jason had achieved his growing recipe for mushrooms and was ready to begin growing them on a regular basis.
But before taking the next step to begin the regular production and selling of the mushrooms, it was time to begin cooking them to find out which varieties were the best. So as Jason was filling the fridge with an abundance of mushrooms, Erica began cooking them and creating new recipes. Oyster mushrooms were fried, baked and added to almost every dish. From soups to quiche to simply sauteed in olive oil with butter, oyster mushrooms were on the table for dinner maybe a little too often!
Understanding the entire process of growing oyster mushrooms from preparing the spawn to picking and packaging, Jason had his work cut out for him to continue to improve all the aspects of the mushroom production. While Erica helped some with the growing process, she focused more on the marketing of Winesburg Mushrooms by setting up the website and Facebook page, and creating packaging labels and other online and printed materials.
Rarely is there a time today when mushrooms are not growing. Each crop is little bigger than the last, and new varieties are being tested regularly to select the next variety to sell.
Getting the oyster mushrooms for sale online and selling to local restaurant suppliers and other local health food stores is Winesburg Mushrooms’ next agenda. Jason and Erica have enjoyed Industrial Image for years and will continue to design, produce and install signs by day; however, by night they will be growing mushrooms and building up a new family business. Winesburg Mushrooms is a business they look forward to their children being involved in from helping to grow, pick, package and sell mushrooms. They can only hope their mushroom sales will continue to grow as well and as fast as their mushrooms are growing!
So that was our history and now we have relocated to Georgia and are considering growing again in the future.