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time: 3:00 pm
air temp: 74 F
water temp: 60 F
tide: high
conditions: fog coming and going, light easterly
Things are finally rocking and rolling on the farm in true summer growing season fashion. Since the last log update, I've finished getting all the gear made, mended and out to the farm, and the oysters stocked unto that gear at their growing season densities. Now it's just a matter of keeping the gear as clean as I can, and giving things an occasional shake to knock some of the fast, flakey shell growth off to encourage the oysters into a rounder shape with a deeper cup.
I've also been busy prepping things in anticipation of getting the seed call any day now! Early-mid June is usually about the time that oyster babies (we call them oyster seed) are ready to go from their hatchery nurseries out into the big wide world.
My 100k, 3mm diameter oyster seed will get evenly distributed into 10 floating nursery boxes that I designed and built and started using last year. These boxes are constructed with small enough mesh to keep the oysters from slipping away into the sea, and they'll stay in the boxes until they are big enough to safely go into real growing bags. The smallest mesh size growing bag I own has about 4mm diameter holes, so it doesn't take long for the seed to graduate out of the boxes!
I'm finally feeling on top of this years months-long farm start up period. It took a little longer this year for a number of reasons (relentless wind, weather, puppy, other life stuff....) but I'm feeling so good this week and ready for the blur of summer heat, harvesting and farmers markets ahead!
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