How To Farm Shellfish

How To Farm Shellfish

The most important thing about farming shellfish is that you farm them in the water. This means your farm has a great view, but it also means you have to know how to use a boat. If you don't already know how to use a boat, learn. It's not hard.

You will want to get a small boat, like a punt or an open sailing dinghy, and outfit it with oars or a little outboard motor. Get a shellfish rake and a couple of bushel baskets. The rake looks like the one your gardener uses to pull up weeds except it has tines designed to comb through oyster beds without damaging their shells. The baskets are plastic-coated wire mesh cylinders with lids and handles, like giant egg cartons with each cup big enough for one oyster—or one lobster or crab, if you live somewhere they grow them.

Put on your waders and your PFD, push the boat into the water, hop in and take off for wherever you're going to harvest oysters, clams or mussels that day. First decide what kind of shellfish you want to raise: oysters are the most valuable but require more work than clams or mussels; mussels are the least

I'm going to assume that you want to farm shellfish because they taste good and you like to eat them. And I'm assuming your primary concern is how you can get the most shellfish out of the ocean with the least amount of effort and expense.

I want you to think about this as someone who started farming shellfish a few years ago, based on some initial research. Then I want you to help me figure out what I should do next.