Mushrooms and music at Oxford farm’s Bank Holiday open day

Oxford Mushroom Farm is hosting a free-to-enter open day tomorrow between midday and 5pm.

Based at a previously unused patch of land beside Hinksey Heights Golf Club, the business opened earlier this summer with the aim of providing fresh gourmet fungi to homes and businesses across Oxfordshire.

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Oxford Mushroom Farm (Image: Steve Hart)

Steve Hart, the owner, has said – like the mushrooms – the company is “growing” and now he is having an open day in the hopes of enticing more fungi enthusiasts.

A lifelong Oxford local, who attended Cherwell School, he launched the farm in January 2024 with an ambition to transform unused ground into something productive.

After two years of balancing the project alongside a full-time job as a builder, landscaper and heating engineer, he officially opened the farm to the public in May.

Among the farm’s offering is Lion’s Mane, oyster, shiitake, speckled chestnut and other varieties of mushroom, with the businesses based around sustainability.

Steve Hart of Oxford Mushroom Farm (Image: Steve Hart)

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Premium mushroom substrates are produced using sawdust sourced as a natural by-product from sawmills in the mountains of Snowdonia, combined with pure Snowdon Mountain spring water in collaboration with North Wales-based growers Fungi Foods.

Alongside supplying fresh produce locally, Mr Hart is also interested in the emerging science of mycoremediation, an eco-friendly technique that uses fungi to help break down ground pollutants and restore damaged land.

He said: “My main goal is feeding Oxford, but also using science and mycoremediation to help heal polluted land and fly-tipping ground in Oxfordshire.”