Terra Fructi

Although this must be considered old news, I feel compelled to write a brief summary of our revised farming plans. After spending a short time in the Central Connecticut River Valley, Liz and I have noticed an obvious lack of locally produced mushrooms in the region. There are two mushroom farms that we know of in this area—one in Chester, VT and the other in Keene, NH—thought neither of them could possibly be meeting demand. So...it is with great excitement and mild anxiety that I announce the establishment of our mushroom farm:

For the Latin-challenged, this means "fruits of the earth." We took some liberty with the construction of the name—it's not an entirely accurate Latin equivalent, but after days of brainstorming, we concluded that it was close enough for us. Liz designed the logo, with a little help from our friend Ellen back in Pittsburgh.

We have registered the business with the feds and the state of New Hampshire, hired a consultant, secured a warehouse space for growing, purchased the majority of our supplies and equipment, and started work on construction of our grow room and incubation room, among other seemingly endless tasks.

Both the Hannah Grimes Center and NH Small Business Development Center have been incredibly helpful with our start-up. We've attended numerous free seminars and workshops at Hannah Grimes and the SBDC has connected us with a business class at Franklin Pierce University that is using Terra Fructi as a case study and developing a variety of useful tools for us, including a marketing plan, website design, and help with financial projections. We are sincerely grateful for all of the support we've gotten from friends, business contacts, and the community at large.

If you want to learn more about Terra Fructi, please visit our website (which is under construction). We welcome feedback from anyone who cares to give it—so keep in touch!