Nikki Plante and her dad, Dennis, love to hike around Rhode Island. Ten years ago, they began identifying more and more edible mushrooms, bringing them home for family and friends. Eventually, Nikki, a Bryant University grad in marketing, realized how much she loved getting out in the woods, searching for mushrooms—“it’s like a treasure hunt”—and she turned a hobby into a business, Y-Knot Mushrooms.

She’s a certified mushroom forager (through a rigorous program of classes and field study) and has learned the best ways to grow, clean and dehydrate mushrooms, too. Nikki says she takes spore prints, studies types of gills, color and smell and does “research, research, research.”

For summer, she expects to forage black trumpets, chicken-of-the-woods, reishi and chaga, plus golden, cinnabar and yellowfoot chanterelles. Reishi and chaga are used for teas and tinctures; the others can be enjoyed in a wide range of savory recipes. In outdoor beds or on logs, she will grow oysters, lion’s mane, shiitakes, black pearl kings, chestnuts, wine cap and almond agaricus.

Find her on Saturdays at the South Kingstown Farmers Market or online at Brand.site/yknotforage