Category Archives: mushroom

GRAND OPENING: Half Hill Farm opens Wellness Emporium in Woodbury

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Half Hill Farm’s new location at 110 West High Street is now open to the public. The Wellness Emporium is next door to DTC and features kombucha, tonics and extracts made with love on site as well as other natural health and wellness products.

Grand Opening: The public is invited to enjoy free samples of komchuca and meet the owners and staff at a grand opening ribbon-cutting of the Wellness Emporium with the Cannon County Chamber of Commerce Friday Nov. 9, 2018 at 10 am.

It means a lot to us to have a permanent home here in Woodbury. We want to thank Tommy and Linda Malone for this opportunity. We wouldn’t be here without the opportunity to grow our business at the Arts Center over the past three years and for them thinking outside the box with us and letting us share the space to make that possible. It feels like forever ago that we were a 6 foot table of organic vegetables at the farmers market next door!

Earlier this year we partnered with Manchester’s Scot Smotherman to expand retail with the Wellness Emporium, a second store location in the heart of Bell Buckle, TN. We truly believed if it failed we could always offer services installing taps and walk-in coolers!

With Bell Buckle doing well, growing demand quickly led to the need for bigger manufacturing space. We were running out of product and turning away a lot of wholesale requests. High Street was the right place at the right time.

High Street: Half Hill Farm is expanding our craft fermented food and beverage manufacturing in the back part of the High Street location off the square. This includes kombucha and kefir, popular probiotic fermented beverages we lightly flavor with organic herbs and juices and bottle as a fizzy soda alternative. We will also continue expanding extracts and hemp oil products to include infused food and beverage and partner with MTSU’s Fermentation Science program for shared learning and resource opportunities.

We are proud of the work our team does to bring better health and well being to our community. Come visit us!

The Wellness Emporium is open seven days a week with several flavors of Half Hill Farm’s kombucha on tap and available by the cup, bottle or growler refills. Follow us on Facebook.

The health benefits of Cordyceps Militaris mushrooms

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Our farm’s journey with the power of mushrooms started with a family illness and continues to bring healing to many friends and customers. That’s why we’re pleased to announce the addition of Cordyceps Militaris to our farm’s line of mushroom extracts!

Cordyceps are a dietary therapeutic mushroom that’s been used for centuries to improve the immune system and boost energy levels. Cordyceps were first used in the mountains of Tibet thousands of years ago as a remedy for fatigue and recovery from illness. The mushroom grows naturally on a caterpillar at elevations of 12,000 feet above sea level in China and throughout the world.

The addition of Cordyceps comes after years of listening to and observing the needs of customers who regularly use our mushroom extracts for better health and well being. Half Hill Farm also makes Red Reishi, Chaga, Turkey Tail and Lion’s Mane mushroom extracts.

Benefits of Cordyceps Mushroom extracts*:

  • Reduces inflammation & oxidative stress
  • Helps recovery from illness and exercise
  • Enhances liver & lung function
  • Improves tolerance of chemotherapy and radiation
  • Reduces tumor development
  • Improves sex drive

Studies show many benefits to using codyceps mushroom extracts including a reduction of inflammation and oxidative stress, the leading causes of most disease. This makes cordyceps, along with chaga mushrooms, a good anti-aging and recovery supplement.

Athletes use cordyceps for recovery and performance as studies show the mushroom’s adenosine levels help increase the body’s supply of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) which is a primary source of energy during physical activity. Cordyceps also increase the body’s natural production of nitric oxide optimizing oxygen absorption and improving lung and liver function.

Cordyceps militaris produces cordycepin, a bioactive compound with antitumor activity in various cancers. The mushroom’s polysaccharides help support patients in the treatment of cancers and also contains 18 essential amino acids, vitamins E, K, B1, B2 and B12, sterols and antioxidants superoxide dismutase and glutathione.

You can purchase our farm’s Cordyceps Mushroom Extract online or at our store in Woodbury and the Wellness Emporium of Bell Buckle.

Studies on potential uses of Cordyceps Militaris mushrooms:

*These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Farm Fails and How I Learned To Love Weeds

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The only surviving blueberry bush at Half Hill Farm

I know it’s silly, but I’ve anguished over how to write this post for about two years.

What it boils down to is a struggle between my vision for our organic farm and what life had in mind. It literally took me a couple years to believe what was really happening.

About a year into farming, a family battle with cancer focused me on the emerging science and healing power of mushrooms that grew without any effort on our farm. It’s what I could do, so I poured myself into cultivating and perfecting a quality product I needed to work for people I loved. It took a heavy toll on the farm. We stopped going to our local farmers’ market. The hops slowly faded into the hillside. Season after season, the deer were having their way in the orchard, and I started growing way more dandelions than anything I actually planted.

Failure and Success: I felt like a total failure even though something amazing was happening at the same time. Customers began calling me from all over the country because they had heard about our mushroom extracts. Our farm’s creation of a natural remedy from our first forage in our woods was changing people’s lives. I got letters and phone calls from people telling me they felt I had saved their life. I cried many times with people on the phone who called to encourage me to keep doing what I was doing. It took a lot of healing customers to convince me it was really happening, and every one was a timely miracle.

It was a life lesson and one of the most humbling experiences of my life. Here I was trying so hard to bring another pound of produce to market when the land had a much bigger purpose in mind with mushrooms and herbaceous weeds if I would just listen to life and let it be. Eager for a purposeful life, that’s exactly what I did..

Half Hill Herbals: As our extract business grew, Vince came on full time and we moved production into an FDA-registered manufacturing kitchen in Woodbury. We expanded our mushroom extracts, partnered with certified organic growers and added new herbal tinctures, extracts and tonics. As I listened and grew with our customers I could see more clearly the path we were always on and how it unfolded in our products and stories of healing. I fell more in love with our weeds, sometimes spending hours identifying and understanding them. I still have a lot to learn and a lot more to share.

      

It literally took mowing down all but one survivor of our 100 blueberry bushes last month to find the language and finally come to terms with the fact that our farm is not what I envisioned. The farm is actually something bigger and more powerful: a beautiful mess of weeds, fungi and a platform for understanding, connecting with, and sharing the healing power of nature.

There were times I sat and cried on the hillside wondering what I was doing selling cucumbers by the pound from two farmable acres. I’ve learned to listen a lot more and trust what the land has been telling me all along. With smarter stewardship and patience, the land will show you its gifts. Weeds and wild herbs that were once in the way of another small crop row have captured my imagination, my heart and my soul.

As I look five years ahead, I see a lot less struggling with mowing and keeping a tidy garden. I see more mushrooms, clover, yellow dock, elderberries, burdock, nettle, mint, yarrow, bee balm, mullein, plantain and yes, dandelion. I see sanctuary. I see more healing. I see life and sharing our future together in the weeds!

Shop Half Hill Farm online or visit our retail store in the Arts Center of Cannon County.

How hugelkultur can help heal the planet

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Hugelkultur is German for “hill culture.” It’s a composting method that allows you to grow food while longer decay processes break down large volumes of buried or mounded wood. It’s an amazing way to sequester carbon and help reduce CO2 outputs that recently have been measured at record levels along with record setting heat. It’s also something you can commit to doing right now to make a difference this Earth Day.

The problem: According to a 2010 report by the EPA, the total global emissions of carbon since the Industrial Revolution are estimated at 270 F 30 Pg (Pg = petagram = 10*15 g = 1 billion ton) due to fossil fuel combustion and 136 F 55 Pg due to changes in land use and agriculture. That’s 400 metric tons of carbon. The potential of soil organic carbon sequestration through composting is roughly 1 F 0.3 Pg C/year, or 1/3 the annual increase in atmospheric CO2 per year (which is 3.3 Pg C/year).

A backyard solution: All of that simply means composting yard wastes could reduce the annual increases in carbon output over the next 20 years by 30%. That’s not through an act of Congress or demanding corporations do anything. That’s a 30% reduction made by each of us in our own backyard. Composting yard waste simply takes all the carbon that your trees and plants sucked out of the air and puts it back in the ground (sequester) where it increases the health of soil, reduces the need for chemical fertilizers, increases water conservation and reduces CO2 emissions. When we burn yard wastes or send food wastes to landfills, we release stored carbon and converted methane into the atmosphere and become part of the problem.

How to make a hugelkultur: The process is pretty simple and a perfect way to get rid of brush, control erosion, retain water and create carbon-rich beds that will produce a lot of food. One thing we’ve added to our hugelkultur beds is old mushroom logs we hope will fruit as well.

  1. Collect carbon: this can be sticks, logs, wood chips, leaves, dried or freshly cut weeds. If you can keep a brush pile going for years, the decaying wood makes a great addition to kick-start the compost process.
  2. Dig a trench in the shape of the bed or hill you want. If you are addressing erosion, keep the trench along contours to capture or slow surface water. 2 feet is deep enough.
  3. Place a thin bed of stick in the bottom and then place your largest logs on top of that. Surround the log with more sticks and cover with wood chips and some of the dirt you dug up.
  4. Super charge your hugelkultur with mushroom logs. Myceliated mushroom logs will break down quicker while also producing edible and medicinal mushrooms. There is naturally occurring mycorrhizal fungi in healthy soil that will network itsway through your hugelkultur, but you can also introduce various fungi in a powerful way.
  5. Cover with dirt and compost if you want to immediately plant in your bed or mound. Cover with nitrogen inputs like green manure (fresh grass or weed cuttings) or animal manure if you plan to plant next season.

You will notice the bed adjust quickly after a few rains followed by a slow decay that makes the surface sink. Over time, the heavier logs will disintegrate. What’s happening is mycelium, microbes, insects and decomposition are making a rich mix of carbon and nutrients for whatever you want to plant. You can plant perennial herbs or annual fruits and vegetables for years as long as you continually amend with inputs from your property. The two beds pictured here took about 1.5 tons of carbon inputs this year alone.

What customers are saying about our mushroom extracts

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Half Hill Farm’s mushroom extracts – available online and our retail store in Woodbury, TN

When it comes to using natural remedies alone, or as adjunct therapies in the treatment of disease, no two people will have the exact same result. Customer feedback from the past three years, however, has shown us patterns of success that are making a difference in their health and well being.

While we are not doctors and cannot make any claims that our products can diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, we are proud to hear a growing number of customers come from doctor recommendations. Our mushroom extraction process was first formulated for a family member to match standardized processes used by scientists and ethnobotanists for the purposes of many clinical trials and studies because we were not happy with the quality available in the market. The recognition of our quality and reports of better health and well being are humbling and give purpose to our work. It’s also as close to an authentic voice our products can have on behalf of what they can do for others.

Patterns of success: The general experience shared by our customers is that doctors are amazed at better than expected results (These customers didn’t experience the hair loss, appetite loss or nausea typically associated with primary care options and often seen in patients around them, and their blood work often surprises doctors showing strong immune response where a dramatic drop was expected). These observations match the results of recent U.S. based clinical trials. Customers with the most success take 2-3 times the daily serving of our extracts during treatment for various cancers followed by regular daily servings as maintenance. Requesting integrative care options early in cancer treatment exposed customers to alternative treatment options that include mushroom extracts. Examples of integrative care programs can be found at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. One of the most common patterns with these customers is a change in diet that adds more juicing and less meats as well as adding turmeric and black pepper seed oil (piperine in the black pepper dramatically increases the bioavailability of curcumin in turmeric to reduce inflammation).

Feedback: Below are excerpts of written feedback in letters, cards and emails from some of our verified customers who have agreed to let us share their experiences. We have slightly anonymized the names of customers below, but if you have questions or more testimony to share, add them in comments.

My mother has stage 4 Lung and brain cancer. She was given 6 months to live and we just passed year 2. She is on a maintenance chemo and in addition to her vitamin regiment I think your product is helping save her life. Thank you! ~ S.O. in Minnesota

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I purchase your extract for our son who has been diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. He has had surgery and had 12 rounds of chemo with no avail. He is now on his second round of chemo for eight treatments. He has been taking the turkey tail extract (a friend recommended it and you) for four weeks today and he feels so much better! His appetite is back and his numbers have been “phenomenal”! He will be having a CT Scan the beginning of December and we are hoping it shows his tumors being affected (we are actually hoping for a “miracle” and it be gone). He is surprised at the amount of energy he has now that he is taking your product. He is taking 2 teaspoons in a cup of tea every morning. I pray everyday this is our answer. Our son says he will take it the rest of his life if it works! Thank you for your dedication to the health of your fellow mankind – it truly gives us hope! ~ J.P. in Wisconsin

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This isn’t about money. It’s about who does things right and won’t cut corners and that’s why i believe your products are the finest offered anywhere. This product is Awesome. I’m 72 and have more energy than I ever had. ~ H.M. in Florida

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Last report was from the radiologist who was excited to see small changes. Couldn’t explain it. This week we saw his oncologist who was very pleased with the progress & admitted there was definitely some changes going on. With that he added, “Don’t stop what you’re doing.” This is huge!! His Dr. encouraged him!! His oncologist really doesn’t want to know about what the “new” changes are that he is doing but his Dr. saw improvement!! Thank you for all of your blood, sweat & tears.  Thank you for taking risks & stepping out and working so hard for a vision that you believe in. You are changing lives & giving hope where there has only been hopelessness. ~ J.D. in Virginia

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I just started taking turkey tail liquid over a month ago. I have stage 4 breast cancer and I went for my monthly shots and exams. My tumors are shrinking and my labs have changed for the better tremendously. My Dr. Was shocked and did not start me on another chemo pill that she intended to do that visit. God has blessed me with this. And I will continue to take it. Thank you so much. More time with my children. ~ K.I. in Kentucky

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I was diagnosed in May 2016 with a tick-borne disease. (Not Lyme, but a similar type of disease with similar symptoms.) The aftermath of these diseases can last for months if not years! As part of my treatment, I took Turkey Tail Mushrooms. Within 3 weeks of starting to take them, I was completely better. My doctor could not believe it, and said that all the blood work indicated that the disease was gone. The biggest problem with those diseases is inflammation and auto-immune response. I really believe the Turkey Tail was the factor that made the difference! Definitely take it in your coffee, it took a couple days to get used to it, but it kind of tastes like vanilla, so was easy to get used to! ~ K.F. in Tennessee

How are you doing? Are you seeing results you want to share? Are you a Doctor recommending our product? Do you want to ask our customers a question? Let us know!

Below is a short list of the extracts we make. Half Hill Farm uses a triple extraction process with distilled water, USDA certified organic and wild crafted mushrooms, and USDA certified organic USP alcohol. Our farm will soon offer more products based on what we continue to learn from published research and our customers who are seeing the best results in their health and well being!

Please consult your doctor before using any of our products for health purposes. These statements have not been reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration. Our products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

The health benefits of Lion’s Mane mushroom extract

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Half Hill Farm’s Lion’s Mane Mushroom Dual Extract

Over the past couple years we’ve grown a lot by listening and learning from our customers and following the latest research. After expanding into a new inspected kitchen earlier this year, we added Chaga mushroom and propolis extracts. Today, we are proud to add the power of certified organic Lion’s Mane (Hericium erinaceus) mushrooms to our Nature’s Remedy line of mushroom extracts!

Adding this healing edible and medicinal mushroom to our mushroom extracts gives you another natural alternative approach to better health and well being. Our Lion’s Mane extract can be used with our other mushroom extracts or as an adjunct therapy in consultation with your doctor.

Uses for Lion’s Mane extract: Half Hill Farm’s Lion’s Mane Mushroom Dual Extract combines extractions of both water and alcohol soluble compounds using certified organic ingredients in a formulation widely used by ethnobotanists and scientists in lab studies. Recent studies show cyanthane derivative triterpenes hericenones and erinacines from Lion’s Mane are unique classes of Nerve Growth Factors (NGFs) that show significant neuroprotective effects, stimulating nerve regeneration and re-myelination of neurons and helping improve memory and brain function.

Lion’s Mane mushrooms have also been used for over 2,000 years in Chinese medicine for digestive diseases. Studies linked below show extracts of Lion’s Mane mushrooms are active against ulcerative colitis, Irritable Bowel Disease, pancreatitis, Crohn’s Disease and gastrointestinal cancers (liver, colon, gastric). Unique compounds of Lion’s Mane mushrooms (palmitic acid, threitol and D-arabinitol) also help reduce blood sugar and regulate lipid levels in blood.

Recent studies on Lion’s Mane (Hericium erinaceus) mushrooms:

Please consult your physician before using any of our products for health purposes. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

‘You saved my daughter’s life!’ – the healing power of mushrooms

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A ‘cloud’ of Turkey Tail mushrooms (Trametes Versicolor) on logs at Half Hill Farm

A few months ago, I got a call from a customer who was looking for what I thought was an adjunct therapy for his daughter in treatment for brain cancer. His own research made him hopeful that our Turkey Tail extract could help. It wasn’t until a couple months later that I discovered on a second call the full extent of what was going on.

“I want you to know you saved my daughter’s life,” the customer told me. It’s something I hear often from customers, from ecstatic calls of people now in remission to those experiencing little to no side effects to chemo or radiation (most common) and positive changes in blood tests, but when he told me his daughter had been in hospice, I was shocked.

It is certainly not a common experience for patients to go from hospice back to treatment options, but it’s stories like this that give what we do meaning and purpose. It’s stories like this that are why we have grown into an FDA-registered manufacturing space and why we continue to expand our product offerings to include nature’s very best organically grown and wildcrafted mushroom extracts.

We are humbled every day with your phone calls and emails. While the body of research on mushrooms is growing, we know we cannot market our extracts or products as a treatment, cure or prevention of any disease, but that doesn’t stop our customers from sharing their stories. It has presented a unique challenge over the past two years as to how we present those stories to you in a responsible way.

Mushroom Dual Extracts available in 100 ml (3.38 oz) or 200 ml (6.76 oz) bottles from Half Hill Farm:

If you are one of the hundreds of customers across the country who take our extracts, we would love to hear why you take them and what you are experiencing. Your experience could help someone follow you on a path toward better health and well-being. You can leave your comment here, or leave a review on the product pages of our online store.

Half Hill Farm opens retail store in Woodbury

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Half Hill Farm’s Apple Ginger Kombucha hanging out in the Stones River.

Come and get you a half gallon growler of our organic Apple Ginger Kombucha starting this Saturday April 30, 2016 at our new retail store in the Arts Center of Cannon County (here’s a map)! We’ll be open Saturdays at 9 am so you can get your $5 growler refilled for $10.

Kombucha is organic sweet tea fermented and carbonated with yeast and probiotics and flavored with organic juices. This raw, vegan, live culture food detoxifies, helps with digestion, and helps keep blood sugar levels in check. It’s just one way we’re looking out for your health & well being.

This Saturday’s opening will also feature over a dozen Middle Tennessee jewelry makers in the 2016 Jewelry Showcase, selling a wide selection of hand-crafted silver, copper, leather, stone, and beaded jewelry – perfect gifts for Mom!

Every Saturday, we will also have our Nature’s Remedy line of mushroom dual extracts featuring the immune boosting power of the Red Reishi, Chaga and Turkey Tail mushrooms. You can also pick up some fresh made tempeh from our partners at Short Mountain Cultures and enjoy crafts from the art and soul of Tennessee!

Nature’s Remedy: Chaga mushroom dual extract

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Half Hill Farm’s Chaga Mushroom Dual Extract is available in 100 and 200 ml bottles.

Chaga mushrooms (Inonotus obliquus) have been used as folk medicine for immune support and gastrointestinal health in Russia for centuries, more recently in treating cancer and the side effects of cancer treatments. Chaga is not an edible mushroom and must be extracted to be consumed. Extracts are made from the sclerotium, a fungal mycelium outgrowth that occurs mostly on Birch trees prior to a rarely seen fruiting body. As the Birch tree mounts a decades long defense against the advancing fungus, the Chaga mycelium creates a host of compounds to fight for its survival, and this is why many call Chaga the “King of the Herbs.”

Uses: Studies show extracts of Chaga mycelium reduce oxidative stresses that lead to many diseases. It has one of the highest antioxident values of any herb and high concentrations of melanin (visible on the sclerotium’s crusted outer surface), ergosterol (vitamin D2) and anti-aging enzymes Superoxide Dismutase (SOD).

Studies of Chaga also show antifungal, antiviral, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties. Chaga’s adaptagenic effects help balance overactive auto-immune responses while naturally triggering needed immune responses. Chaga is often used to treat eczema, psoriasis, and dermatitis and to normalize cholesterol and blood sugar levels. Compounds from both hot water and alcohol extractions, including polysaccharides and terpenes (betulinic acids, phytosterols), have anti-tumor growth properties making Chaga a candidate as an adjunct therapy. Betulinic acid has been shown to help break down LDL cholesterol.

How to Purchase: Half Hill Farm is pleased to add the healing power of Chaga mushrooms to our Nature’s Remedy line of mushroom dual extracts that include Red Reishi (Ganoderma Lucidum) and Turkey Tail (Trametes Versicolor) mushrooms. Our Chaga extract processes responsibly wildcrafted sclerotia (fungal mycelium) of the Chaga mushroom through a lengthy hot water (distilled water) and alcohol (USDA Certified Organic pharmaceutical grade USP) extraction process. Our full spectrum dual extract is manufactured in our FDA registered manufacturing kitchen for our USDA Certified Organic farm and bottled in premium Miron ultra-violet glass for superior preservation (shelf life of 1 year).

Take Chaga daily in morning coffee or evening tea or in combination with any of our mushroom dual extracts. There are no known contraindicators. Below are a few studies of Chaga mushrooms for deeper understanding of this powerful mushroom.

Research on Chaga (Inonotus obliquus) mushrooms

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please consult your physician before using any of our products for health purposes.

Kombucha fermentation tanks arrive for farm brewery

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Kombucha fermentation tanks

The delivery guy knew the exact location of the only loading dock I could borrow in town, even though it really has no address. It’s a small town, but the driver had been here before delivering freight to Short Mountain Distillery. When he saw the tanks, he knew what was up. 

“Someone’s about to do some serious brewing in Woodbury,” he said with a smile. It’s certainly a first big step in starting our farm’s brewery and churning out some organic fermented goodness!

These 58 gallon (220 Liter) stainless steel fermentation tanks ought to help us brew a lot more kombucha, vinegars and other things to come, but we’re definitely going to need some bigger space to do it right.

Blueberry Ginger Kombucha Apple Ginger Kombucha

The kitchen is full of bottles. The living room is full of bottles, and the quiet is broken by the low hum of a small fridge full of more fizzy booch! There is a home somewhere underneath it all. This year we made a lot of kombucha and shared some with neighbors. We love what it does for our health, and we can’t wait to share it with you!

kombucha bottling day kombucha brewing

Follow us on Facebook to watch our brewery grow and to learn when, where and how you can enjoy our kombucha products!