Kevin Lungren considers himself similar to Ciscoe Morris or any other gardener, only his garden is underwater most of the time.

He and many others are part of a growing group of people on Whidbey Island and around Western Washington taking up oyster cultivation, commonly called oyster gardening. Kurt Johnson, a biologist who specializes in shellfish, will lead a three-day oyster gardening class through the South Whidbey Parks and Recreation District in May. Already eight spots have been taken in the 15-student crash course in bivalve cultivation.

It involves a lot less maintenance than growing green beans and tomatoes. But it also requires someone to own beach property for oyster growth, and not just any beach will do. Johnson said a good beach needs a firm substrate of gravel, cobble, or packed silt/sand uncommon on Whidbey. Suitable beaches also shouldn’t be too exposed, an automatic out for many locations on the island’s west side.

“That’s not to say you can’t garden there,” Johnson said in a phone interview Tuesday morning. “You can garden on sand. It requires a different type of gear and more work.”

“This is gardening, it’s just like gardening,” he added. “If you want to grow carrots, not every place is suitable for carrots.”

Lungren, who lives on Holmes Harbor, has raised oysters for more than two decades. Today, he has 18 bags across his private beach and tideland. Some years are great, others are good, and a few were terrible.

Just like a traditional garden, an oyster garden has pest concerns. Barnacles can smother an oyster bag, limiting the amount of water flow necessary to deliver food in plankton; this is called fouling. As eelgrass has returned to his side of the Freeland harbor, so have sea stars, the ravenous seafloor predators that would consider themselves blessed to stumble upon a bag of oysters, practically an invertebrate’s buffet.

“My nemesis has always been sea stars,” said Lungren, also president of The Fishin’ Club, in a phone interview from his Edward Jones office in Clinton. “With the flourishing of the eelgrass beds, those have brought more and more sea stars closer to where we have our bags.”

“I know they have a place and I know they provide a balance,” he added. “I am concerned if they got wiped out, there’d be a huge overpopulation of mussels and other things. I dislike them like gardeners dislike rats.”

Checking the bags and placing them on the proper type of beach at the right tide level can help reach seed survival rates near 90 percent, Johnson said.

This will be South Whidbey Parks’ first oyster class. Past shellfish lessons about crabbing and clam digging have proven popular. This year’s Clam Digging 101 on April 19 is already full and the oyster class is halfway filled. Parks Program Director Carrie Monforte tapped a district volunteer in Johnson, who has helped with the annual triathlon for years, to lead the oyster class.

“It’s definitely an interest here,” she said, adding that this class helps people, “(learn) to appreciate what we have here on South Whidbey and all the great resources we have.”

Aquaculture has been a bit of a battleground on Whidbey Island in recent years. Concerns about pollution and invasive species led to the county’s prohibition of net-pen aquaculture for all non-native fish in 2013. A series of guidelines lays out how anyone can raise marine life, either privately or commercially, according to Island County Planning Manager Hiller West.

“As far as Island County is concerned, I don’t know if we make a distinction,” he said.

He recommended, however, that anyone interested in getting started with shellfish farming check with the Department of Ecology and Department of Natural Resources. The two agencies may have other requirements that aren’t specified in county rules.

Cedar Bouta, a Shoreline Master Program specialist from the Dept. of Ecology, said the state agency’s main concern is the spread of invasive species.

“Part of our strategy is to look at the specific location,” she said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon.

“The line is if they take those oysters and sell them. That’s a whole other set of regulations,” she said.

Johnson declined to comment on the all the various regulations, saying that’s the realm of shoreline planners and legal counsel. He did note that the small-scale nature of what oyster gardeners do was not creating excessive pollution.

“What we’re doing is a very small, benign activity on the beach,” Johnson said. “It’s not commercial, we’re not doing aquaculture. It has very little impact on the beach.”

The state Department of Fish and Wildlife regulates only the removal of shellfish, and even then only from public lands. Private tidelands and beaches can have oysters removed by the owners and lessees and immediate family members without daily limits for personal use, according to Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife’s website.

Selling oysters is more heavily regulated. Oysters cost $1 to $3 and up per shell, depending on the type, at restaurants. Ordering a dozen fresh, live Pacific oysters for 24-hour delivery costs $130 and more. Getting seed from Taylor Shellfish costs $30 for about 500 spat for Pacific diploid and triploid and Kumos, Virginicas and Olympias.

Taking the parks district class costs $25 which includes a determination of the viability of the students’ beaches, and an additional $170 gets students with suitable beaches 10 oyster bags, 500 oyster seed and the gear needed to secure the bags to the beach.

“It’s not a huge investment,  only to find out their beach isn’t suitable,” Monforte said.

For Lungren and his ilk of oyster growers and, more deliciously, oyster shuckers, the payoff comes at the end of every slurp and bite. He raises several varieties, including Pacific triploids that are good to eat year-round because they do not spawn (which makes the meat watery and limp) and native Olympias and the introduced Kumamotos. If he ends up with between 150 to 250 edible oysters, about 50 percent survival, it was a good harvest.

“It’s just so gratifying to put these little dime-size spat into an oyster bag, it’s Jack and the Bean Stalks magic beans, it looks ridiculous,” said Lungren, who added that on good years, he can hardly lift the bag alone.