Cleaning & Storage

When you buy leafy greens from me - whether it be a bunch of spinach, a head of lettuce, a bag of salad mix, or something else - it will come unwashed. 

The benefit for you is that unwashed greens, particularly delicate greens like arugula, last longer than after they are washed. Mechanical washing damages leaf cells, speeding up the process of decomposition. My greens are cut by hand and immediately packaged for sale within a day of harvest. As a result, it is not uncommon for my customers to report that greens they purchase from me are still fresh a week or more later (my record is two weeks for unwashed greens). 

My nemesis on the farm are slugs and, to a lesser degree, insects. I am constantly waging war on slugs, sometimes with humorous results (The most effective strategy I use for slugs are beer traps, which often attract crows, resulting in entertainingly intoxicated corvids!). 

For all my efforts, however, I cannot guarantee slug-free salad or greens. The only way to do that would be to use toxic chemicals that I have no interest in having near my food. 

To make sure you don't find unexpected protein in your salad, do the following when washing your greens. 

• Make sure that the greens are loose. For salad mixes from me, you can simply dump them in a bowl of salt water, but for head lettuce, cut the head up into the desired final sizes before washing to expose all nooks and crannies and unpackage bunches greens like spinach. 

• Create a cold salt water solution. Fill a large bowl with cold water and add a heavy dose of table salt (use the cheap stuff, no use wasting good kosher or flake salt on this). I aim for about 2-3 tablespoons for a large bowl of greens. 

• Gently wash greens in salt water. Add your greens to the salt water solution and gently agitate them with your hands. Let the greens sit in this solutions for at least 3-5 minutes and as long as 10 minutes, agitating gently with your hands every one to two minutes. Try to make sure that the greens stay fully submerged. Sometimes it's helpful to put a plate over the greens to force them under the water for this. 

• Rinse in clean, cold water. After the greens have been soaking for a few minutes, scoop them out of the salt water. I recommend scooping them out with your hands or a strainer rather than dumping the greens, which may result in unwanted debris ending up back in your washed greens. Fill up a clean bowl with cold, unsalted water and gently rinse the greens to remove any remaining salt. Salt will also cause greens to desiccate, so this is particularly important for longer storage. 

• Spin dry thoroughly. Use a salad spinner to thoroughly dry the greens as much as possible (again, moisture will speed up decomposition, so removing it helps with storage). If you don't have a salad spinner, an old pillowcase works decently. Fill the pillowcase with greens, go outside, and spin the bag of greens around you as fast as you can. 

Once your greens are washed, store them wrapped in a clean dish towel inside a plastic bag. Lay the dish towel out on the counter and spread the greens out evenly on it. Fold in the edges to keep greens from spilling out and roll the whole thing into a tube like a burrito. Put this burrito of greens inside a plastic bag and keep it in your fridge. 

Keeping greens in a dish towel helps absorb excess moisture that will eventually cause your greens to spoil. Keeping them inside a plastic bag will help minimize evaporation that will result in greens simply drying out. 

Once greens are washed and stored like this, you can keep them in your fridge for 4-6 days. Again, unwashed greens will always keep longer, so if you don't plan on using greens immediately, then keeping them unwashed will keep them fresh longer. However, I like to pre-wash greens in bulk so that I can easily pull them out and use them whenever I want. 

I rinse all root crops before bringing them to market. However, while they may look nice, they are not meal-ready clean, so please make sure to wash them. 

Unlike many store-bought vegetables, mine are not grown with any chemicals. This means you don't need to worry about peeling the skins of root crops (Peeling is something I suggest for many conventionally grown root crops from the grocery store because the skin of the root is most likely to absorb pesticide and herbicide residue).  To prep your root crops from me, simply scrub them thoroughly with water and a scrub brush. I typically do not peel any of my root crops before cooking, including beets (customers often grew up learning that they had to peel beets and don't like them because of the labor involved). The skins of root crops often contain many of the nutrients that we want from the plant, so there's good reason to leave them on (in addition to making life easier). 

I often have customers say that they don't want a vegetable like my cabbages because the produce is large and the customer is afraid that they won't use the produce fast enough. However, crops like cabbage, winter squash, and many hearty greens like kale will last incredibly long times. Here are some common long-storage crops. 

• Cabbage. I store cabbages in my fridge for several months at a time (sometimes up to six months under the right conditions). The outer leaves will dry out, but if you peel those back the inside will be fresh and crisp. Even if you cut a cabbage in half to use part of it, the other half will store for two to three weeks easily when kept in the vegetable drawer of your fridge. 

• Fall squash. I love fall squash, both for its flavor and because it's something I can live off of all winter long. Fall squashes - spaghetti and acorn squash are common on my farm - are bred to be kept for many months. As long as they are stored in a cool, dry place with good air flow, such as a basement on a wire rack, they will keep for six months easily. I had a spaghetti squash that sat on top of my fridge for 15 months before I finally remembered to use it! Over this time, squash will lose moisture, but as long as they do not freeze (which damages protective cells) and are not broken open, they will not spoil. 

• Kale and hearty brassica greens. Brassicas like kale and collards are incredibly long lasting leafy greens in your fridge. Simply store them unwashed (again, washing can damage cells speeding up decomposition) in the vegetable drawer and they will be fresh for up to two weeks. Even if they start to dry out slightly, you can still use them in soups.  

For aromatic greens that you might get from me, like dill, cilantro, parsley (or even scallions), keep them in a small cup of water in your fridge to maintain freshness. You can also keep them on your counter, but they won't last quite as long. Change the water every day or so and, for things like cilantro or parsley, cut off the bottom of the bouquet every two or three days to expose a fresh end of the stem, which will help maintain water uptake. I often keep small bouquets for a week or more so that I can use them in small amounts in cooking.