Everett’s Black Forest Mushrooms is a ‘giant endeavor of tiny necessities’

If the mushrooms had eyes, they would realize this is not the forest. Their squeaky clean bodies grew not from wet leaves or manure or rotting trees, but rather inside an 8-by-8-foot tent off a quiet street near the Snohomish River in Everett, where an Air Force veteran cultivated an entire farm out of a 300-square-foot garage.

Outside the mushrooms’ fruiting chamber, a man-made habitat contains all the things responsible for their birth: an autoclave to sterilize their diet of dry grain and soy, an AC unit to manage the temperature . . .