For more than a decade, the PMCSF has used a Community Supported Aquaculture (CSA) model that allows participants to buy a seasonal membership to the farm and receive deliveries of shellfish throughout the spring and summer. As a supporter of the PMCSF you are invited to volunteer with growing and harvesting the oysters. This means you get to visit the farm, help us tend, collect and bag shellfish and partake in the fun of eating locally! Being a part of this shellfish farming community means more than receiving shellfish; it means having the opportunity to connect with a local food source and contribute to critical pollution control efforts in your watershed.
We will be offering a short CSA harvest season at the PMCSF in 2023! Sign up for membership at one of three different levels: receive 2, 4 or 6 dozen oysters at each of three oyster harvests on Fridays, May 19th, June 2nd and June 16th. If you are unable to participate in the harvest activities, your allotment of oysters can be picked up from the PSRF office the evening of the harvest.
Puget Sound Restoration Fund has been invested in the Henderson Inlet Community Shellfish Farm since 2002, along with our partners, Washington State University, Elliott’s Oyster House and Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association. Henderson Inlet, a charming estuary in southern Puget Sound, not far from Olympia had been closed to shellfish harvesting for years due to water quality issues. At the outset of our collaboration, PSRF wanted to join hands with others in the watershed to restore clean water in a historic shellfish growing area – and good things have happened as a result of this undertaking. In the face of increased development, and contrary to predicted trends, water quality has improved.