When you meet a tattoo artist who turned growing mushrooms as a hobby into a thriving urban farm in Oranjestad, you have to ask if they have any mushroom tattoos. When I ask Rachell Peterson, she replies, “Lots and lots!”

How did you get started in urban farming?

Rachell Peterson: It started as a hobby, and about two years ago, it turned commercial. It came together at the request of chefs on the island because they weren't able to find the mushroom species that I grow. A lot of mushrooms have a short shelf life, so you can't import them.

What made you scale up from your home operation?

RP: I tattooed a full sleeve on Chef Urvin Croes from Infini. It was culinary-themed and there were mushrooms in the piece. While I was tattooing a mushroom, I told him I grew mushrooms at home. He got excited and was like, “Oh, you have to sell me some lion's mane.” So I brought him lion’s mane mushrooms and he put it on his menu—but I wasn't ready because I only had a grow station at home. That's why I started doing it commercially. I needed to scale up for him. Then, some of his chef friends saw what he was cooking with and they started calling me, too.

What made you start growing mushrooms at home?

RP: I was always fascinated by mushrooms—even at an early age. When I was young, most of my artwork focused on mushrooms and fairies. And when I was 17, I bought an at-home grow kit. Since then, I've been studying mushrooms. It started with looking for botanical illustrations in books.

Tell me about the growing process.

RP: There are a couple of steps. The process starts in the lab for incubation. Mushrooms don't grow from seeds; they grow from mycelium. So we start by growing mycelium on agar plates. At the second step in the process of incubation, we feed the mycelium rye berries. The mycelium will colonize the bag of rye berries completely. From this bag, we'll separate the contents into 20 substrate bags. In the substrate bags, we’ll feed the colony hardwood, soy hulls or wheat bran. Depending on the species, incubation can take anywhere from two weeks to four months.

When the substrate bag appears to be all white, then we make a cut in the bag (the cut will depend on the species) and we'll send it into the fruiting chamber to grow completely. The temperature, humidity and air are controlled in the fruiting chambers. Mushrooms put out a lot of CO2 so we have to extract it out of the chambers. Oyster mushrooms especially like fresh air.

Tell me about the experimental phase.

RP: At first, I went with the stuff I knew I could already grow. I didn't want to experiment too much in the beginning because I needed mushrooms readily available for chefs. Now, we’re experimenting for the chefs. We’re even experimenting with local species, which is what I'm the most excited about. Aruba hasn't documented the species we have in our mondi (countryside). So I walk in the mondi every time it rains to clone mushrooms. What I want to achieve with this experiment is set up an outdoor farm on Aruban soil. We're also developing supplements, though, which is also exciting.

What’s the transition from tattooing to farming been like for you?

RP: I’m still tattooing. I'm trying not to tattoo too much, but I can't let go of the art. Not yet, at least. So right now it's easy because the tattoo shop is right next door. I move between both worlds throughout the day. I know that eventually I'm going to have to be at Farmacure Fungi full-time because I'm being called to something here. It's a mission for me.

What’s your mission?

RP: In Aruba especially, I'm focused on educating people about mushrooms. We didn't know about mushrooms before. So in these past two years, I've been doing a lot of work educating the local people about mushrooms. You can tell there’s a lack of information about mushrooms because sometimes they ask me, “Oh, you're not going to die from eating this pink mushroom?” And I tell them no, it's actually healthy.

We're doing a lot of educating on social media, but I’m also at the farmers’ market to speak with everyone who stops by. It helps to spread the word. A lot of people also visit, we do group tours and we’re working with schools.

What are you most proud of?

RP: I’m not there yet. It's only the beginning. Well, I am proud that I actually did this. But I think there's a lot of work to be done. This is still a baby for me, you know? When you work based on passion, then it doesn’t feel like work. That’s something I've done my whole life.