Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Salad Mix Harvesting

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Beth Spaugh" <lists AT rhomestead.com>
  • To: "'Market Farming'" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Salad Mix Harvesting
  • Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:02:10 -0400

I'm not expert, but will chime in.

Arugula - we end up planting too thickly, so pull whole young plants in
thinning for the first couple of harvests. That is fast. When larger I often
just pick the outer leaves so have several harvests. We only grow arugula in
the fall and very early spring. If I can keep the stem ends all pointing in
the same direction I can grab a handful, swish it through water, and place
in spinner, stems up (easier to retrieve in some semblance of order).

Harvesting salad mix - Johnny's Victorinox Serrated knife. Again, we tend to
plant too thickly so cut an inch or so, leave a couple of inches, for at
least two harvests. We can do that here even in summer. I like the leaves to
be large enough to have some character (3 or 4"). I plant and harvest
varieties separately so am only looking for exceptions to one variety when
washing/spinning.

With the exception of taking outer leaves in fall/winter, we don't do second
cuts, for the reasons you mentioned.

Beth Spaugh
Rehoboth Homestead, Peru, NY
Farm Fresh Food Club CSA - http://rhomestead.com
Garden fresh vegetables, organically grown, and pastured chicken, duck, and
geese

"How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." -
Wendell Berry

"Without power over our food, any notion of democracy is empty." - Frances
Moore Lappe

-----Original Message-----
From: market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Barking Cat
Farm
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 3:21 PM
To: Market Farming
Subject: [Market-farming] Salad Mix Harvesting



Regards to the list! Sorry if this appears twice, I sent this in 2
days ago and have not seen it come through yet.

I've been reading through the archives from this year and already
found answers to two questions (we're going to pass on the Johnny's
greens harvester and wait on the pinpoint seeder). So thank you
already. A few questions I didn't see answered follow.

We grow salad mix intensively (hand planted in rows about 3 in/apart).
We usually cut just once because the labor associated with hand
sorting 2nd and 3rd plantings often doesn't justify it. Although in
cooler weather it is more tempting to do that.

A few questions for the expert salad mix growers out there:

- are you cutting by hand?
- any suggestions on how to sort out any bad bits quickly?

We have the same question about arugula - how does everyone harvest it
and post process it? We find it to be an extremely time consuming crop
at times.

We do grow both of those in low tunnels under row cover, which helps
reduce the damage.

Kim Martin
Barking Cat Farm
www.barkingcatfarm.com
barkingcatfarm AT mindspring.com
_______________________________________________
Market-farming mailing list
Market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/market-farming







Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page