Back to Blog Listing

After a successful pilot year for oyster gardening in Mississippi, we are really looking forward to the first full season which starts this summer. 

We have been busily arranging for gear and recruiting new sites. We got great news from our partners at Mississippi Department of Marine Resources last week in the approval of our first 15 sites! We still have room for more gardening sites, so if you are interested please contact me.

We anticipate oyster spat (baby oysters) to be ready for delivery in late June. The program (funded by National Fish and Wildlife Foundation) supplies the gear (small mesh baskets) and oysters. Tending to your oyster garden only takes about 45 minutes or so of your time every 7-10 days during the season.

An oyster garden is a mesh container like this one. The gardens hang from piers as the oysters grow.

Seasons run from June/July through November/December.  ALL oysters are returned to designated reef sites for restoration.

If you are interested in more information and potentially becoming a Mississippi oyster gardener, contact me at [email protected].

Want to see how oyster gardening works? Check out this short video.

Meet the author

P.J. Waters, Ph.D.

Associate Extension Professor

P.J. is an associate extension professor with Auburn University. He coordinates the Mobile Bay Oyster Gardening Program and its projects, as well as K-12 aquaculture/aquascience programs. PJ works... Read more

Catch the latest blogs!

Microplastics research aims to improve current monitoring capabilities

Microplastics are an environmental issue of increasing concern. They’re in the water we drink, food we eat, air we breathe and virtually every body of water on earth. Microplastics are defined as pieces of plastic smaller than 5 mm in size. 

Anthony Vedral

Read more

Oyster farming lingo: What does it mean?

If you’ve spent any time around commercial oyster farming, you've probably heard terms like seed, spat, SoS and florets. They can sound a little confusing at first, but they’re really just names for different stages in an oyster’s life.

Russell "Rusty" Grice

Read more
Read more blogs