Each spring we purchase ‘seed’ oysters from our friend Bill Mook at Mook Sea Farms, a shellfish hatchery in Walpole, Maine. The seed generally arrive in late spring, once the water temperature is warm enough to sustain growth.  The seed arrive at roughly 1 millimeter; so that the 1 million we buy each spring is not much more than a handful.

In order to facilitate growth, we must place our newly arrived seed in an upweller. The upweller is an essential piece of oyster farming equipment that pumps seawater over the oysters at a rate that ensures an abundant amount of phytoplankton (i.e., food) is available.

The oyster seed in the upweller have plenty of food, owing to the increased water flow, so that at this point growth is a function of temperature.   Assuming average summer temperatures, oysters should reach 0.5″ in about 6-8 weeks in the upweller.  At this time, oysters are removed from the upweller and placed into plastic mesh bags.   Because oysters grow at different rates, some of the oysters will be ready to come out of the upweller much sooner than other slower growing individuals.  So, oysters must be sieved every couple days through the appropriate sized mesh screen.  Oysters retained on the screen go into the appropriate sized bags and those that pass through the mesh are returned to the upweller.

The bagged oysters are now ready to be moved out to the farm!  At this point the oyster bags are placed into our oyster ‘grow out’ cages.  These cages are constructed of rubber coated 12-guage wire, similar to that used to construct lobster traps.  Each tray holds approximately 500 market-sized oysters so that each cage can be used to grow approximately 1,000 oysters.  After the bags are placed into cages and deployed on the farm we haul the cages throughout fall to ensure they remain clean and water is capable of flowing freely over the oysters.  Around November, we say good-night to the oyster seed as we leave them, untouched, over winter where their metabolism slows way down as the water temperatures around them plummets.

After the oysters get their spring-cleaning, we set them back down to grow as the water gets warmer.  Over the course of the summer we haul and clean the oysters as they continue to grow.  When they reach about 2” (generally about 15 months after we receive them as 1-mm seed) it’s time to spread them out on the mud flats of our lease area.

So, after all the love and care and tending to we gave our seed, we now simply shovel them over the side of our work barge where they will spend another 2 years on the seafloor growing into delicious Basket Island Oysters.

Looking for our oysters? Some can be found here. We are always adding new restaurants to our list.