8/10/26

we're getting into the more grueling, fast-paced part of the oyster season now that it's august. this is the time of year where the biofouling that grows on my gear really starts to ramp up it's growth rates (that's all the different kinds fo algae and tunicates, baby mussels and other slime), which left unchecked, starts to crowd out and suffocate the oysters. things are about to get heavy, and i will be spending lots of time air-drying gear and trying to stay of top of it.

the baby oysters are also really staring to take off in their first season on the farm, and i will be spending more and more time in the coming months grading them by size, periodically pulling the biggest of them out and moving them into floating bags with bigger mesh to allow them continual access to as much water (and food) as possible. and of course, it's still summer

in maine, so the harvesting demands remain sky-high thanks to busy farmer's markets and restaurants, so the harvest days are still backbreakers! which, of course, is what it's all for in the end - bringing those oysters in from the farm so they can land on your plate. :)

(all photos in this post taken by Kirby Gamel for Modern Pioneering, PBS)

7/9/26

nothing like the fourth of july to bring on the realization that it is, indeed, summer once more 😅 markets are busy, restaurants are busy, the oysters are GROWING like crazy once more, and my 2026 seed (baby oysters!) has arrived and taken to the farm quite nicely. 

all of this is to say, i'm back in the blurry haze of harvesting, delivering, and tending to the oysters every second in between. not only do the oysters grow like crazy when summer really heats up, but all the many other fouling organisms (algae and tunicates, barnacles and mussels...) also go into growth overdrive. this means lots of cycles of air-drying the gear the oysters grow in to try to keep the mesh as free and clear as possible to allow ample water (and thus,

food) to the oysters inside. i'm also paying lots of attention to the densities the oysters are stocked at in each bag, spreading them out into more cages as they grow to prevent overcrowding and allowing them to grow up nice and big and round. 

and lastly, of course, the little baby oysters get the MOST attention in their first season. they've gone from 3mm in diameter, one month ago, to many above and beyond the 1/2" mark already. i grade them frequently, sorting out the biggest and moving them out of their nursery boxes and into grow out bags as soon as they are big enough. its a wild ride from here on out! if i look a little sleepy at market now you know why 😉 

6/18/26

i've been busy for the last month and a half or so working on getting the farm fully built back out. this means all of the gear i own is back in the water, and the crop from the previous two years is spread out as evenly as can be into all that gear to give it as much room as possible to grow into. a couple weeks ago i received my first installment of new oyster seed for the year (the rest should hopefully be coming to me to join the gang here soon), and they seem to be happy and thriving in their nursery boxes on the farm! they'll likely be due for their first round of grading by the end of next week, and many of them will graduate from their fine mesh boxes out into grow out bags.

for the bigger oysters, it's been a little bit of a slow start to the season out here in terms of

growth, perhaps due to the cold icy winter and relatively cooler spring we've had here in the northeast. it feels like just this past week i finally started to really see a lot of new shell growth on the oysters, which is definitely a little later than usual. if you can't tell from reading my updates, i very much measure the passing of time during my growing season by the milestones - farm raising, first growth, seeding days, and farm sinking - the rest is a blur of sweat and farm work and harvesting in between, so when the milestones feel like they land a little differently from year to year, i take notice. but i'm also not too worried about it, the oysters have never failed to overwhelm me with their growth rates by july so i'm confident they'll catch up with me!