Wild Mushroom Festival Turns Deans Mill Farm Into a Fungi Playground

Wild Mushroom Festival Turns Deans Mill Farm Into a Fungi Playground Oct. 4, when one of Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center’s signature fall events brings together mushroom hunters, chefs, growers, artists, and curious beginners for four hours devoted to the surprisingly enormous world of fungi.

And you don’t need to know a chanterelle from a chicken of the woods to go.

The festival combines two experiences that don’t usually occupy the same afternoon: part food festival, with approximately 10 local restaurants preparing mushroom dishes for sampling, and part outdoor classroom, where experienced foragers and mushroom experts teach visitors what they’re actually seeing when they encounter fungi in the woods.

Then things get considerably more eclectic.

There’s live music, a mushroom marketplace, mushroom-themed crafts, growers selling fungi, mushroom ice cream, and even tattoo artists offering mushroom designs.

In other words, DPNC has gone pretty far down the mushroom rabbit hole.

First, Eat the Mushrooms

Food has long been one of the festival’s biggest attractions.

Approximately 10 local restaurants and chefs are expected to participate this year, preparing mushroom-centered samples rather than simply setting up conventional food-vendor booths.

Admission includes food tickets: adults receive 12, while children receive six. Additional food tickets can be purchased during the festival for $1 each.

The exact 2026 restaurant roster and dishes have not yet been publicly posted, so there’s some discovery involved when you arrive. Previous versions have used the tasting component to show just how differently chefs can approach fungi rather than treating mushrooms as one ingredient with one flavor.

And there’s one particularly unusual festival favorite returning to the conversation: candy cap mushroom ice cream. Candy caps are prized for an aroma often compared to maple syrup, making them one of the stranger examples of just how far mushrooms can travel from the stereotypical sauté pan. The Wild Mushroom Festival also promotes mushroom beer among its specialty offerings.

Then Learn How to Find Them

Eating mushrooms is only half the idea.

DPNC is using the festival to introduce visitors to the much larger ecological world behind them.

Naturalists, foragers and mushroom experts will lead woodland walks and educational talks covering mushroom hunting, identification, cultivation and cooking. An identification table gives visitors an opportunity to examine specimens and learn the characteristics experts use to distinguish different fungi.

That’s an important distinction from simply heading into the woods with a phone app and deciding something looks edible.

Wild mushroom identification can be complicated, and some toxic species resemble edible ones closely enough that beginners should never rely on photographs or a single identifying characteristic before eating something they’ve collected.

The festival provides a much better starting point: experienced people, actual specimens and an opportunity to ask questions.

DPNC has watched public interest in exactly this kind of knowledge grow dramatically. In its reporting on the festival, the Nature Center noted that interest in foraging surged during the pandemic, helped in part by people sharing their finds and woodland excursions on social media.

The Festival Got So Popular It Had to Move

The Wild Mushroom Festival has been around much longer than the current location.

For years it was held at DPNC itself, where it developed into one of the organization’s signature events. Eventually, success created a practical problem: the festival outgrew the Nature Center’s parking capacity.

That led to its move to Deans Mill Farm on Pequot Trail in Stonington.

It’s a particularly good fit.

The farm’s approximately 70 acres provide room for parking, fields for vendors and restaurant tents, and trails that can actually be used for the mushroom walks. Previous festivals at the farm have also included a beer garden as a place to settle in between programs.

That makes this less like a lecture series with some food attached and more like a small fall festival spread across a farm.

The Mushroom Marketplace Goes Beyond Something to Eat

Not every mushroom at the festival is destined for a plate.

The expanded Mushroom Marketplace brings together artists, mycologists, mushroom growers, foragers, crafters and chefs selling their work and products.

That might mean cultivated mushrooms and fungi-related products at one table and mushroom-inspired artwork at another.

Then there are the tattoos.

Local tattoo artists are scheduled for a pop-up offering mushroom-themed designs during the festival.

So someone could theoretically spend Sunday learning how to identify mushrooms, eat several varieties, buy mushrooms to take home and leave with one permanently attached to an arm.

That’s commitment.

Live music runs alongside the marketplace and food sampling, while crafts give children something hands-on to do between the walks and other programs.

Four Hours May Go Faster Than You Think

The festival opens promptly at noon and runs until 4 p.m.

Unlike a conventional fair where people can simply arrive whenever they want, advance registration is required, and DPNC is warning that the festival is expected to sell out early.

An adult ticket costs $36 and includes 12 food tickets, admission to the Mushroom Marketplace, educational talks and walks, and crafts. Children’s admission is $18 and includes six food tickets along with the same access to the marketplace, educational programming and crafts.

There’s also a larger purpose behind all that fungi.

Proceeds support the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center, the Mystic-based nonprofit that works in environmental education, conservation and wildlife rehabilitation while stewarding more than 350 acres of protected land.

The Wild Mushroom Festival manages to compress a surprising amount into four hours.

You can come because you want to eat mushrooms.

You can come because you want to learn how to find them.

Or you can come knowing absolutely nothing about fungi and discover that the strange things appearing on fallen logs and forest floors every autumn occupy a world considerably larger — and considerably weirder — than the produce aisle suggests.

More information is available at the Event Website link below. To purchase tickets, click the Event Ticketing link below.

Details

Event: Wild Mushroom Festival
Date: Sunday, Oct. 4, 2026
Time: Noon–4 p.m.
Location: Deans Mill Farm
Address: 1189 Pequot Trail, Stonington, CT 06378
Organizer: Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center
Adult Admission: $36, including 12 food tickets
Child Admission: $18, including six food tickets
Additional Food Tickets: $1 each at the festival
Food: Mushroom-inspired samples from approximately 10 local restaurants and chefs; the individual 2026 restaurant roster has not yet been published
Programs: Guided mushroom walks, talks with naturalists and foragers, mushroom identification, cultivation and cooking education
Marketplace: Artists, mycologists, foragers, crafters, growers and chefs
Also Planned: Live music, mushroom-themed crafts and tattoo-artist pop-ups
Registration: Advance ticket purchase required; organizers expect the event to sell out
Phone: 860-536-1216
Contact: alissa@dpnc.org

 

 

Featured image is an artistic representation inspired by the event and may not depict the actual people, location, or activities shown.