We have had many questions on exactly what kind of adventure do oysters have on the way from our beach to your table.
There are two sets of oysters that we have out at the beach. One is the natural oyster that sets onto a shell or a rock and grows right on the beach the other are the oysters that we plant in our floating bags.
Lets start with what we call the natural oyster. All along the beach are oysters that naturally grow on the rocks and other shells that have ended up there merely by mother nature. These oysters start to spawn roughly in the middle of July when the water warms up. When an oyster spawns it releases millions of oyster “seeds” into the water. These mini oysters float around with the tide until they find a rock or shell to attach to. If you have ever opened a “milky” oyster that is the oyster spawn inside of an oyster. This year we actually had an unheard of second spawn.
Once these oysters attach to a rock or a shell they start growing. Pending getting eaten by starfish or crabs these oysters will eventually grow into an oyster that ends up on your table.
Next we have our seed oysters that we put into our floating bags. These oysters start out as baby oysters roughly 8 mm when they are added to our floating bags. They are housed in here past a -3 tide to keep them under water as best as possible. They are protected by the bag from most predators. 
We have found that muscles also like to sneak into our oyster bags and they can kill off oysters by choking them out; so we have to watch out for them. Once the oysters get to about 2 inches we take them out of the bag and put them onto the ground to continue to grow.
Regardless of which way the oysters are grown they are held in the water until the day 
before we ship them to you. This keeps them as happy and fresh as possible. We as a group go out morning or night (depending on tides) to pick the
Oysters Ready for Shipment
oysters for you. Winter is by far the most difficult as the tides are all between midnight and 5 am and you can encounter all sorts of different weather.
Once picked the oysters in the summer will go into a refrigeration unit to knock them down to 33 degrees and keep them as cold as possible with out freezing. They are held there until we box them up with gel packs close them up and ship them off to you.
We then put them back in the refrigeration unit to await the UPS driver.
- Our Son Helping Box up
The oysters are then shipped out and delivered to your door.
In the coming weeks we will be posting pictures of this whole process so you can see exactly how the farm is run. I hope you enjoy our story. Please feel free to visit us when the tides permit by checking out the visit our farm page.
Kind
Regards
Jaime, Vanessa, Jane, Wyatt and Allie
