We have been busy harvesting lots of greens these past few weeks. Spring is a time when greens really shine, while a lot of other veggies are just getting going.
This spring we are growing kale, spinach and two kinds of lettuce: Baby Leaf Mix and Salanova.
Harvesting
Spinach is the most time-consuming to harvest. We cut it leaf-by-leaf, selecting the larger side shoots and allowing the upper leaves to continue growing.
Salanova lettuce is also harvested by hand, but the entire head is cut at once.
We like growing this lettuce because it has a very short core. When the bottom is cut off, the leaves fall apart and are easily mixed together for a bagged salad mix. We grow six varieties to create a nice mix of colors and textures in the bag.
Baby Leaf Lettuce is the quickest to harvest! We have a handy tool called a Quick Cut Greens Harvester. It was developed by another farmer and is powered by a cordless drill!
Washing and packaging
Once the greens are harvested, they are placed in our walk-in cooler until we are ready to start washing and packaging them.
It's important that they stay cool to keep them as fresh as possible for you!
Step One: Sort and Rinse
The cut greens are transferred to a basket and plunged into a tub of cold water, then into a second tub of cold water.
This helps to rinse some of the dirt off and hopefully any garden critters that hitched a ride on our greens. We also try to sift through the greens and spot any weeds that may have been cut along with the greens.
Step Two: Spin Cycle
The basket of rinsed greens is placed into our giant salad spinner to help dry them a bit.
Our salad spinner is actually a converted washing machine!
Step Three: Weigh and Bag
The greens are bagged up and weighed to ensure each bag is the same.
As we bag them, we are looking for weeds and pulling out any bits that aren't up to snuff.
So, after going through this whole process... are our greens ready to eat, like the bagged salad you can purchase at the grocery store?
No...they are not! We aren't washing the leaves, just plunging them into cold water. You may still find some soil, a weed we missed, or an insect in your bag of greens!
That might sound less than ideal, but we see it as evidence of our promise to you that we aren't using pesticides on the food we sell you!!
We hope that you found this little peek into our harvesting process interesting!
Cheers,
Jennifer & Brian