Three Little Spats Oyster Co. contributes to the health of Southeastern North Carolina’s rivers, bays and sounds
It may stretch a metaphor but, like any other farm, oyster farms need irrigation.
Hear me out: Just because something grows in water, it’s not enough just to have it. The water has to be the right kind, in the right place and moving in the right way to grow—and ultimately sell—a high-demand oyster best served on the half shell.
The water must be absolutely clean, in a protected saltwater bay or river with strong tides. The first two speak for themselves; the last is required to create a deep cup, which will hold an oyster’s salty liquor while it’s shucked. Anyone who’s cooked oysters on a grill can appreciate any help to keep it from spilling and sizzling away in a maritime mist.
Mother Nature, says Evan Gadow of Three Little Spats Oyster Co., takes care of the first steps by herself. At one of the company’s farms, a bit east of the Vandemere Town boat ramp, in a crook of the Bay River as it makes its way to Pamlico Sound, her tides rock the flat rectangular oyster bags that sit just below the river’s surface.
The motion chips away the sides of the shell, which makes them grow deep instead of wide. Gadow, who with his dad, Ryan, and partner Steve Anderman operate Three Little Spats, guide that last step.
Each working day, he and a small crew haul dozens of the thousands of bags that cover their 10 acres of farms from the river back to their dock. There they run the oysters through a long, rotating stainless steel tube, where they are tumbled. The oysters are washed and sorted by size. A first series of holes separates the smallest; mid-size oysters drop out next and the largest fall into primary-colored plastic baskets. They come out white and pale gray with thoroughly chipped edges; the cup will grow deeper.
While the tumbler rotates, Gadow pulls out an oyster knife and cracks one open. “We taste them frequently,” he says, looking for a full meaty mouthfeel. If they’re watery, it’s no good. He adds, “We’re looking for a salinity, a salty balanced oyster; that’s kind of our hallmark.”
Quality control includes the shells. “They have to be nice and shuckable, not brittle.” If the oyster is not old enough, he says, the shells can be thin.
Once all the oysters are tumbled, they are put in clean bags with room to grow. The small oysters go back in the water. The larger are ready for market as Bay River Selects.
Three Little Spats has another dock further south on Turkey Creek; a half-hour boat ride southeast takes you to Stump Sound, where the company’s second farm of 35 acres sits in the Permuda Island Bay.
Ryan Gadow, Evan’s father, spends most of his workdays on the farm hunched over a machine-driven conveyor belt powered by tech higher than water and gravity; he says it’s the first laser sorter in the state. As the oysters go by and drop by size, Gadow inspects each one for deformities.
“There’s a reason we touch all of these oysters eight times before they go to market,” he says. “We want to deliver a consistent product, so when the restaurants put them on the plate, they all look the same.”
How many times? Gadow lists them: Baby oysters, or spat, arrive at the farm when they are four-millimeters long; they’re transferred to the nursery. The spat is stirred each day and the nursery is cleaned. Once the seed reaches one-half to three-quarters of an inch, which takes three to four months, they’re bagged and go in the water. The bag-to-tumbler routine starts; this happens at least three times. Fully grown oysters then meet the laser sorter and Gadow’s eagle eye. Finally they’re packed and ready to go.
A laser sorter, says Gadow, saves on labor, but it also cuts down on the time it takes an oyster to reach a dinner table. One day’s harvest can be in the refrigerator within an hour.
The reason people only ate oysters in months with an “R” was because it was too hot to ship them the rest of the year. He notes all his machinery is solar powered.
“Oyster farming, in general, is the greenest farming,” he says. “The cages attract marine life and, between our two farms, we have about three million oysters in the water.”
Each of those three million filters an average of 50 gallons of water per day. Projects across the country have used manmade oyster reefs and established oyster farms for the sole purpose of cleaning water fouled by pollution, overuse of fertilizers and disasters like the 25 million gallons of hog waste that spilled into the New River in 1995. The river had already been closed since 1980 due to the inadequacy of the sewage systems at Camp LeJeune and Jacksonville City, both at the river’s head. No swimming. No fishing.
After the spill the city decided to take action. Jacksonville’s stormwater manager, Pat Donovan-Brandenburg, had an idea. With the help of scientists from NC State University scientists, the group created the Oyster Highway to use nature’s natural filter to bring the New River back to life and show how the rivers, bays and sounds are all connected.
Donovan-Brandenburg grew up around fisherman in Sneads Ferry, learned to scuba dive at age eight and knew young that keeping local water clean would be her life’s work. “I wanted to be a mermaid,” she says. “If I had gills, lord y’all would never see me again.”
The Oyster Highway, which started with manmade oyster “catchers” developed by the project, has worked. The river reopened to swimmers and fishers in 2001. Now, says Donovan-Brandenburg, scientists and clean-water activists call her nearly every week asking how they did it.
From its inception, the project has evolved and expanded its reach. The mini oyster reefs fuel the food chain, and forest management on the river banks keeps the water flowing while providing fertilizer for spat replenishment, which is entering its final phases.
The sounds along the coasts of Pender and Onslow counties now host a growing number of farms that lease water columns or own the bottom land. In 2022, North Carolina’s farmed oyster industry added $14.6 million and created 283 jobs, according to North Carolina Sea Grant.
The Gadows first threw a bag in the water in 2018 and business has been good. Ryan Gadow admits he never eats raw oysters, and says he focuses on running the farm as a business. “I’ve never had a passion for it,” he says. “But I love what the oyster does.”
This story appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of the magazine.
