Last weekend I learned how to be an oyster gardener along the Mobile Bay.

The oyster garden restoration project is getting underway and I’ve signed up, with some interested 4-H families, to participate.  I’m armed with oyster cages, some measuring tools and knowledge.  I just need to find a location for the garden.  There are specific areas in the Bay that are designated legal for these gardens.

What we’ll do is collect 100 oysters from the Auburn Shell Lab folks who will distribute them mid-June.  We’ll separate them into the 4 cages and hang them in the Bay water from underneath a pier.  Each week, until November when the oysters are collected by the  Auburn oyster garden staff, we’ll check on the oysters.  Our duties will be to measure the oysters, shake the cages to allow predators to drop out, clean the cages of barnacles and replace them in the water.  We have to report what we’ve done and the data we’ve collected.  The plan is that by November the oysters spawning activities would have produced more oysters that would have set on the existing shells and grown along with the larger ones.  When they’re collected in November they’ll be put into the restoration reef somewhere else along the Bay.

We need to find a pier.  I’ll be heading out along Scenic 98 next week to scope out locations and knock on doors.  Hopefully someone will let our 4-H group use their pier for an underwater garden location.

In a few weeks we’ll head over to the Auburn Shell Lab on Dauphin Island to investigate what they do there. 

Check out the website for the project: www.oystergardening.org.  Be sure to watch the video and the link for adopting an oyster garden.  Thanks