The Hidden Coast Journey: Entering our fourth oyster farming season

As we start our fourth oyster farming season, it feels like a good time to begin reflecting on where we are now, how far we’ve come and what is ahead for us. It has been an incredible journey that has been challenging, at times downright infuriating, but also it has been the best thing that has ever happened to us. For Greg and Joe, this isn’t just a business, it’s a way of life that grows with every oyster.

How it started

This farm was started as the result of a daydream. An oyster farmer working on the south shore of Massachusetts at a boutique oyster farm called Island Creek had bought fully into the idea of running a farm. He wanted to bring this way of life back to his home of Coastal New Hampshire. The road to having the farm is long and challenging in its own right and in the summer of 2020, the farm license was finally purchased.

The farm is 4.5 acres in size and is positioned on the shelf of the channel in Upper Little Bay. The first couple years was about seeing what types of gear were giving the oysters the best possible opportunity for growth. We positioned the gear as deep and shallow as we could. We tried growing oysters in trays and in ‘oyster condos’. Trying to work a 9-5 and fit in running on the farm was a large commitment, but the small successes made it all worthwhile.

Lessons learned along the way

Running a farm is unpredictable. This is exacerbated by the fact that it grows in the ocean. The ocean is a frontier that humankind has never been able to control. No two days are ever the same, even though they seem to all blur together over time. We have dealt with issues ranging from minor boat maintenance issues to losing an entire crop to freezing water temperatures and ice.

Success is not universal. Just because something works at different farms does not mean that it will work somewhere else. Having experience is great, but being able to adjust is essential. Innovation isn’t just a word to describe new technology. Most businesses innovate in a way that is merely a change in corporate strategy. In the food production industry, if you don’t produce, you don’t survive.

Community is the most important thing. Maybe not THE most important thing but it is sneakily important. A public image nowadays is assumed to be an online presence. But people who watch you work and drive by your farm want to know what is going on. To our community, oyster farming is a very new industry and people truly want to be informed. And for us, we would love to help educate. There are no walls around our farm, we have nothing to hide and everything to show.  

Looking ahead: Vision for our fourth season

Our main mission is to grow the best oyster we can. What we say to our chefs is that we aim to be our shucker’s favorite oyster. We as farmers eat our own product and coming up we used to shuck other people’s oysters and say “I hope our oyster looks like this!”. We want to have our product have the same impression. We want consumers to eat our oyster and say “Wow! This was grown in NH?” Our goal for 2025 is to grow as many of those incredible oysters as we possibly can. We hope that you will help us get there.

We also want to expand to work with more communities. One of which is in the vein of outreach and education. We said earlier that we want to help educate people in the community and we truly mean that. This year we will be working with the Seacoast Science Center, in Rye NH, to provide an exhibit of oyster farming for visitors to the science center. We are working on this project with Mike Doherty of the Center for Sustainable Seafood Systems. We will share more information on this as the project progresses.

Farm visits are something that people always ask for. People who want to come to visit our farm in Little Bay are encouraged to do so. A good friend of ours started giving these tours for us last year and has started his own touring company after finding himself so busy last summer.

If anyone is interested in tours we encourage that you follow the link to PKPaddleTours.com to see when you can schedule a tour, he does have accommodation for a handful of smaller kids.

Gratitude for the Journey

                We couldn’t have done any of this without help. We can tell you it is literally impossible to do this alone. This ranges from the learning experience that we received from the Skip Bennett school of oyster farming to the encouragement and support that we have received from family and friends to all of the community members and partners that see what we are doing and want to help us. We appreciate all of it and are able and willing to pay it forward when possible. If we can help someone else work towards their dream, then we can really help shape a new world built on creating positive change.  

                As we embark on our fourth season, we invite you to join us on this next leg of the journey. Whether you’re a long-time oyster lover or someone who’s just curious about life on the water, there’s always something new to discover.

Here’s to another season of hard work, salty breezes, and the joy of bringing fresh oysters from sea to table. We’ll see you out there!

-Joe and Greg