www.shellfishgarden.com

Excellent! Starting small to test your beach and methods is the way to go.

Question out there......With the really extreme cold temperatures we had in early December and some very low tides, did anyone experience oyster mortality. Specifically I had Triploids in grow-out bags and the top of the highest bag was about +4.0 feet. This of course meant a long time for exposure to the cold. These were 4 in. triploids planted on May 23rd so they were not real robust to be better insulated.
Growler

Had Kumos and Olys out deeper hanging off my dock at around 0.0 ft that were fine. Not sure about those higher up - Need a good low tide while I'm awake before i will find out. I'm more worried about my steamers!

I have never heard of a hard freeze, like we had a few weeks ago, hurting pacific oysters. Olys and kumos on the other hand could be killed by prolonged cold durring big night tides. I would not worry about your clams, unless you are harvesting them durring the winter. I know that when the temps drop below about 15 degrees F the geoduck farmers stop harvesting.

We did an oyster harvest on the evening of Dec. 25. All triploid pacifics appeared to have survived the really cold weather including those that are on higher ground with the bottoms of the bags at +3.5. With the ambient temperature of the beach and the semi-protection of the growout bags they survived the weather but not us! Lovely critters on the BBQ and we shared with friends and around a grill on the fire pit (Madrona wood) right on the beach where they came from,,,, in a dense fog, most of which was our breath. How dandy and made plans for more and expanded grow next year. We will visit them again tomorrow Jan. 6, 2010 to do a little maintence as it appeared that one lower bag getting a little silted in on the 25th ( I didn't notice but my partner did and she told me too late to do anything about it) so time for some minor work. I expect some mortality with this little inconvenience and we can really check everything well. Not sure how many we have left out of our experiment,,thinking 500 or less,, but we certainly have had a blast slurping them down with friends and family.
Growler

As a follow-up to my Post of Jan. 5, we went out on the low last night and the "siltation" that was casually observed was not that at all. It was tiny barnacles on the bag. Now the odd thing is the barnacles spawn in the Spring. These grow-out bags put in on May 23rd. Of the eight bags only two,,,one at the lower ground and one on the upper ground, have them and in profusion. The rest do not have one tiny barnacle at all. Next time out I'm going to have to take both of those bags out of service and replace with a couple of clean ones as the water circulation is going to be heavily restricted. Any suggestions on removing the barnacles on the bags??
Growler

First leave the bags out in the open for two to three months (rainfall) to kill all sealife and make things easy. Sometimes we drive over them in the driveway with the truck, multiple times, but it is easier to use a rubber mallet and say a chopping block from the wood pile to bash them to smithereens or I have found that the tailgate of a pickup truck works great, rotate bag as needed, then rinse with garden hose and you have clean reusable grow-out bags! Plus you've just added to your driveway cover! Have fun-good eats...

Thanks sheltownoly. We are in Hammersley too, just up Inlet from Church Pt. in the big sweeping cove. Oddly I was considering driving over the bags as those thing are really durable. We will be doing an expansion of the experiment of this year. Have you tried Virginicus at Shorecrest? Right now the Pacific Triploids are very hardy for us but always willing to try something else.
Growler

Yes we have successfully grown all the types of oysters that Taylor sells the seeds of. And all with great success and I might add fantastic taste and quality. Our only problem occured in our first year of Oly farming (bags too high on the tide line) but once rectified we regularly enjoy the unique splendor of our native bivalve at will - yum-slurp! We currently maintain a variety of Trips, Dips, Virginicus, Kumos(Oh Yes!) and of course the mighty Oly! As a by-product of our aquaculture the surrounding beaches have become abundant with the escapee Pacifics and continue to reproduce free-range with abandon. When we first started you could'nt find an oyster on the beach if your life depended on it. I say, try them all! Good luck, Good shuck, and Good eats!!! - STOly!

Thanks Sheltownoly. We intend to do the same,,,mix it up a bit. Little of this and a little of that. The triploids have been a grqnd success but with your information that the Diploids are reproducing is very interesting as I know that temperature is a real key for the successful spat take on the ground. How far down on the tide lne are you putting Olys?? Where we are there's this horrible ungodly mass of multilegged starfish are at about 0.0 and beyond. I mean really THICK. SOLID. So far no real problem with the growout bags and the lower ones totally exposed at +2.9. But beyond that is the starfish zone of shellfish death. If we do the shell-on spat of Olys I'd think putting them also in grow-out bags just to protect them. There is a private operation that is just down inlet by about 300 feet with absolutely no care on the bags. My count was 32. The older lower ones are so crowded that they are about ready to burst or just die from suffacation or barnacle over-run. Really sad to see so much effort and then just walk away. Must be doing trips as no sign of any self propagation. I'm going to see if they'd like some of the bags to be opened and utilized on my next low tide trip out there. I'd love to see what you are doing on the Inlet if that's possible sometime on a good solid low tide. Thanks, I'm in the book in Oly. G. Cloud
Growler