Spring ’23 Float Sale at

Deltaville Maritime Museum and Holly Point Market Event, May 27th

~Carl Zulick, Vic Spain, MOGs

TOGA will be holding its spring ‘23 sale and educational event at the Deltaville Maritime Museum during the museum’s Holly Point Market on Saturday May 27 from 9am to 12pm.  The Museum is located at 287 Jackson Creek Rd, Deltaville, VA 23043. 

TOGA will provide educational materials and personal consultation with Master Oyster Gardeners who will work with both prospective oyster gardeners and those who may have advanced questions about their own oyster gardens.

TOGA will be selling Taylor, Flip, Tidal Tumbler, Rough Rider, and Bottom cages, as well as spat tubes and spat bags. Local spat vendors will be selling triploid and diploid spat. Some spat vendors require cash.

To ensure we have your float order available, please order by May 1. This year’s prices are shown on the right. To order floats online, click below:

If you choose not to order online, please mail the form via US Mail.

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• Note: Purchasing TOGA-built floats is a membership benefit. If applicable, please join or update your dues for 2023. If you are not sure of your dues status, check the address label on the back of your “mailed” newsletter (you should see 2023, or later if up to date) or contact vicpain@rocketmail.com.

• To join or update, click here.

See https://www.oystergardener.org/devices-and-designs for a description of our floats and devices. TOGA accepts checks or cash. 

In 2022, TOGA volunteers built and sold over 325 floats. It was hard for our hard-working volunteers to keep pace with the many orders we received. Nevertheless, we are happy to witness this level of enthusiasm in oyster gardening. This year we are starting early with home building in order to get our inventory up before the rush. We will also have a float building and Build-Your-Own Day on Saturday May 13, 10am-1pm at Camp Kekoka, 1083 Boys Camp Rd., Kilmarnock VA 22482.

Please stay tuned to TOGA’s website: https://www.oystergardener.org/spring-float-sale and TOGA emails because circumstances may require us to change dates and times.

Why are our prices going up? We, like all of you, have been experiencing inflation, but we also have seen shortages of float-building materials. Just a few years back, a 100-foot roll of oyster cage wire cost about $240; now it is $410. During the pandemic, PVC pipe, elbows and end caps for our floats became very hard to find. Fortunately, thanks to the generosity of Southern Plumbing in Gloucester, we have been getting donated scrap pipe. Hopefully, we can continue getting this pipe. But we are paying much higher prices for the elbows, caps, primer and cement.

This year, we ask that you limit your order to three wire-mesh cages plus up to two spat tubes. If at the time of sales we have spares, we will make them available.

Visit and enjoy the park, waterfront, vendors, and artisans at the market; see TOGA’s outdoor exhibit at the pier adjacent to the museum’s historic 62.8-foot, 9 log buy-boat, the F.D. Crocket, built in 1924.