How to Start an
OYSTER FARM
Daniel Hanson and Dawn Smart You can ask Siri or Alexa how to do it and surprisingly, they’ll give you several helpful options. The articles range from “jonathans blog” to Hobby Farm Magazine and the Port City Daily online news source for Wilmington, NC. YouTube also has a number of informative videos on the subject. Together they cover everything you need to know, including startup costs, siting, permitting, equipment and where to get seed. Of course, it’s a lot of work to tackle each item and it is not for the faint of heart, especially permitting. But if you are interested in starting a farm you could do worse than to follow these leads. They may not be complete, but there is enough information to get you headed in the right direction. Alternatively, there is an online course from the Institute of Food and Agriculture at the University of Florida, Sea Grant of Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana and the Auburn University Shellfish Lab. It is free and here’s the link: https://oyster-culture. teachable.com/p/online-oyster-course.
In our case the process was somewhat less structured—more serendipitous and fun. Early one spring Saturday our 92-year-old father and Dan attended a Taylor Shellfish Community Seed Sale. It started at 8:00 AM so they thought they should get there around 7:30 AM. What did they find but a line of about 100 people snaking through the parking lot? It was fun to talk with others looking to start or expand their farms. There were people from all over the area. The waiting time enabled Dan and Ray to talk to other would-be oyster gardeners and some actual farmers. It was the perfect venue for our dad to have a conversation with whomever would talk to him, so he did, and they made friends with a few people. One person really helped—Steve Bloomfield. He told them what they would need besides oyster seed… some rope, rebar, plastic lay-flat bags, and lots of zip ties. They had no idea! Steve gave them some used lay-flat bags and they bought Pacific oyster seed and the rest of the equipment and headed home. Suddenly, and to their surprise, they realized that the seed needed to be planted that day before the tide came in!
When they got home the tide was still low enough for them to install the lines, rebar, and the bags with seed. They really didn’t know what they were doing, but it was simple enough to get it done. That would be the beginning of our fledgling farm. Flashback: Oyster harvesting was Dan’s very first job as a young person; in 1959 he was hauling gunny sacks of oysters from our beach on Hood Canal up to Highway 106. They were picked up by a truck from a Grays Harbor shellfish company; don’t remember the name and not sure if the truck was even refrigerated back then. They opened the oysters and Dan was paid $2.50 for a gallon of shucked meat. Not a lot at the time, but a lot to a 13-year-old boy! Our two tidelands on Hood Canal had been used by the family as recreational properties for three generations. Swimming, water skiing, picnics and sunbathing were the main events but our grandfather, the original settler, used to dig clams and open oysters on the beach and share them with friends and business associates.
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