Maryland Oyster Gardening Program
Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Oyster Gardening Program offers the opportunity grow oysters. Adult oysters returned to CBF are planted on sanctuary reefs.
Current oyster gardeners: Spring spat returns are now open for registration. If you would like to participate in the program as a new oyster gardener, join our email list to be notified when registration opens or complete our volunteer form.
What Is Oyster Gardening?
Oysters are the Chesapeake Bay’s best natural filters. They also provide essential habitat for fish and other Bay creatures. Unfortunately, the oyster population today is at a fraction of historic levels. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Oyster Gardening Program gives people the opportunity to help bring back this vital species by growing oysters alongside their docks. Oyster gardeners pick up their oysters from CBF in the late summer/early fall. Once grown, the oysters are returned to CBF in late spring/early summer for planting on sanctuary reefs.
How Is it Done?
- To grow oysters, each participant builds a set of oyster cages from wire mesh, which will hang from the dock. The gardener also receives spat on shell, which are baby oysters on recycled oyster shell. This step usually takes place between August and October.
- Gardeners grow their oysters in the cages for about a year until the oysters are about one to two inches long.
- The gardener then returns the adult oysters to CBF, and our staff plant the oysters onto sanctuary (non-harvest) reefs in Maryland waters. This step usually takes place between May and July.
- The gardener starts over with a new batch in the fall. The hope is that each gardener will continue to produce a new crop of healthy adult oysters year after year.
Want to become an oyster gardener? Sign our volunteer registration form. Have questions about CBF’s oyster gardening program? Send an e-mail to MDOysterGardening@cbf.org.
