head lettuce

[littleminnie]

Last week I cut leafy head lettuce and baby lettuce mix for market. I actually washed both and spun the baby leaves and put in the fridge. They held up great but I don't know what to do with the head lettuce once it is wet. What do you do? I think instead of selling in clear bags out of a cooler this week I will cut the head lettuce (again it is leafy varieties and very grogeous), bind 2 together and sell upright in a container with ice water. What about that?


Lettuce is doing great this year!

[oxbowfarm]

We only sell lettuce by the head. I wash it and crate it up wet, then I tip the crates up on their sides to drain a bit. We display it wet and sell it wet. We spray all the greens with water to keep them from wilting anyway. Most folks just throw it in their bags without a care. But we do have bags if they need them to keep other stuff dry.

[12540dumont]

Minnie, I dunk the whole heads head first, when I come out of the field, give them a couple of swishes and store them upside down in the fridge with a wet towel under them and a wet towel on top of them. On CSA day I bag em, like a bouquet.

At the market, we left them on a wet towel in a tray and spritzed them.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Jun 6, 2012 21:02:07 GMT -5 littleminnie said:

Last week I cut leafy head lettuce and baby lettuce mix for market. I actually washed both and spun the baby leaves and put in the fridge. They held up great but I don't know what to do with the head lettuce once it is wet. What do you do?

I cut off the entire lettuce plant below ground. If the head is too small I wrap a plastic band around several until I get as much lettuce as I want. I plant a couple seeds every foot in a clump and then thin early, so one head of leaf lettuce is usually plenty. Iceberg doesn't form heads here, so I bundle it up just like any other leaf lettuce.

I squirt with irrigation water to remove the worst of the dirt and put them in a cooler, and plop some ice on them for an hour or so until market starts. I pull them out of the cooler dripping wet as needed. The super low humidity here means that greens wilt immediately if they are not wet and chilled. I harvest just about everything the same day it goes to market, especially greens.

I have an ongoing understanding with my people that everything they get from me needs to be washed or cooked: I'm also sprinkle irrigating, so there's no telling what comes in with the irrigation water. If I leave some dirt on the greens, it encourages people to follow through and wash them thoroughly.

[12540dumont]

I also do not over wash veges. I got to spend a day in the Post Harvest Production Dept. at Davis. This is where I learned that some things should not be washed until you use them.
Eggs
Berries
Potatoes

There's probably more, but those stick in my head. I hydro cool everything else. Icy water in a big sink and in goes corn, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, beans, etc. Then they get bagged and fridged if there is room.

I pick the evening before 1/2 of everything that can stand being picked, like peas and beans and cole crops. All greens, and berries and anything fragile are picked the day of.

Now that the potatoes are out of the field, and have had a week to harden of, I will brush the soil from them (lightly) and bag them into 1 pound units. This will make it easier to deal with them on CSA day.

[littleminnie]

Thanks for the replies! I checked the thread on my i phone quick before picking today. I had so much time today that i cut all the lettuce and other veg., washed the scallions and radishes in my new washing station and loaded everything else to bring home. Then I washed and spun dry (used vinegar and salt in the water per Lucy Goodman) all the cut greens and stuck in the fridge. Then I washed all the head lettuce and then bindered them in twos (they were gorgeous, I should have taken a photo but the market was so busy today). Then I put them in a plastic tub and into a cooler with ice. At market I added ice to the water and they all sold but one. The baby lettuce (not very baby) didn't sell as well as the leafy head lettuce. One of the varieties ended up being an iceberg style. I wasn't sure how to rubber band that with another so I am going to make Thai lettuce wraps.

Now I am looking into getting things to do all this at the field in my washing station. I am buying tubs to keep clean and a salad spinner. But I cannot afford one of the big industrial ones. Today I used mine and just reloaded it a bunch of times. Lettuce season should be over soon.

[steev]

I think lettuce should not even be cut, but uprooted, roots rinsed, and set in water until used/sold. I think if I get around to marketing, I might try selling leaf lettuce in pots; they're pretty plants.

[Deleted]

I could use that mulching and cover to protect my leafy greens from the heat and wind.

[James]

I have tried several types of lettuce. The one I have come to like the best and the one that sells good is Black-seeded Simpson. I plant 3 or 4 seeds every foot in the row, together in a bunch, then later thin the bunches so that I have one plant every foot apart. It is important to thin so that you get a nice large floret of leaves. When picking for market. I rinse the plant and remove any browned leaves. Put it wet in a cooler with ice. At market, I only remove it from the cooler a couple at a time for the table so it will remain fresh and not wilt. Lettuce sure wilts fast here in the dry climate.

Here is an example of what you will get if you thin so the plant has room to develop.

[raymondo]

I bought a packet of Black-seeded Simpson but was surprised to find that the seeds were brown rather than black. Seems odd, given the name!

[oxbowfarm]

When you look at them next to a variety with the standard white/tan seed they look much "blacker". I say standard but I suspect black seeds are closer to wild-type lettuce seed coloration than the white.

I like Black Seeded Simpson very much for the early spring and in the fall. It is not a good summer lettuce, much to prone to bolting. For green leaf in summer the next best thing to Black Seeded Simpson is Simpson Elite which is much slower bolting. We transplant all our lettuce from 200 cell Speedling plug flats to get the right spacing and make quicker rotations for the greens.

[rowan]

I grew celtuce for the first time this year just as an experiment. Wow, my market customers loved it and kept coming back at future markets to ask for it. Unfortunately I only grew one small bed but I have a few beds of it in now.
Celtuce seems to be easier to harvest and keep turgid than other lettuce types.