[Market-farming] head lettuce
Emily Curtis-Murphy
emilydash at gmail.com
Fri May 8 09:37:34 EDT 2009
Liz, chilling in ice water as soon as possible after picking is
essential. When picking more than a case or two, we wash lettuce in
the field on a wash wagon, to get rid of field heat, then put cases in
the cooler within an hour, sooner if sunny out. The quicker you cool
the heads, the longer they will last in storage. You could rig up a
mini wash wagon with a smaller washtub in the back of a pickup. Water
should be ice cold, but you want ice cubes to mostly melt before
lettuce goes in, so they don't get stuck in lettuce heads and cause
little frost spots.
Emily, VT
From: "Liz" <liz at horseshoegardens.com>
Subject: [Market-farming] head lettuce
We have a bumper crop of head lettuce for market this week. I've never had
so much to harvest and prep. We're planning to harvest directly into wood
crates, dip in chilled water briefly, drain, then put in cooler. Am I on the
right track here?? (Supposed to have finished this today but we don't have
enough harvest crates--and to think I was worried about having enough to
harvest way back when....)
Liz
Horseshoe Gardens
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