Our Farm
Shelton, Washington. South Puget Sound. Where Little Skookum and Totten Inlets merge, our farm benefits from a strong tidal current, protection from heavy storms, clean and food-rich water. We have been growing specialty pacific oysters for over 15 years and are well into crafting a perfect oyster. We beach grow our oysters. Co-mingled are the oysterbeds with Olympia oysters and the Skookum Points, our clam beds above them in the upper inter-tidal region. We grow our own seed, using nothing but time, technique and clean bay water to grow our best quality shellfish for you. Hand selected during harvesting, hand washed, examined once again for quality and placed into refrigeration within one hour.
Olympia Farmers’ Market
Open 10:00 am to 3:00pm
April thru October (Thursday –Sunday), November and December (Saturday and Sunday)
The Olympia Farmers’ Market is our showcase for our shellfish. It is at this location where we market our Manila Clams, Littleneck Clams, Skookum Point Pacific Oysters, Olympia Oysters and Kumamoto Oysters. If you are in the area, drop by, check us out and chat for a while!
Want more info?
johna@skookumpoint.com
Our History
Our History
It starts back on the thirties with this guy, Archie Adams. A logger from the southern Olympic forests, he moved his family to Little Skookum Inlet and with help from family, built a house using the existing structure of the Callow house.
Evan Adams moved into the house in the seventies and raised shellfish using traditional oyster cultch methods spending endless hours on the beach with a hammer and chisel breaking up oyster clusters into singles. As hatchery produced seed became more readily available, he conducted many experiments on how to grow smaller, highly edible to crabs, seed. Eventually, he ended up at the Olympia Farmers' Market where he can be found today selling clams and oysters.
The Water.
Our most important asset is the water. It’s chemical, organic and ecological structure really define how our shellfish taste, appear and grow. Here in southern Puget Sound, we are fortunate to have clean, algae-rich waters. The water is turbid with algae and other sea life moving about the water column and through the estuary. Additionally, we have a fantastic current that moves up to 5 knots. This current delivers a constant supply of food, flow to keep the shellfish populations healthy. The combination of the rich water and strong consistent current keeps the animals fat, healthy and able to have lots of shellfish neighbors.
September 17, 2010. I was washing the nursery and noticed that the water had such a tremendous algae bloom that I could smell the algae and know it’s type. Here is a look inside an upweller ring full of ¼ inch pacific oyster triploid seed. Normally, it is possible to see the seed at the bottom of the white upwellers.
September 10, 2010
September 10, 2010. Notice the deep coloration in the middle of the channel. Water and current. Here you can observe the strong current pulling the new algae bloom into through the mouth of Little Skookum inlet. When I see this, I think of food and fast growth.