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  • From: Curtis Millsap <cmillsap1 AT yahoo.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Market-farming] vegetable washing/processing floor plans
  • Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:31:20 -0800 (PST)

Growing for Market magazine had a nice piece on wash station lay-out last summer.    Principles to glean from our experience;  each wash station should have it's own designated hose and sprayer, you waste a lot of time setting that up everytime you need to wash.  double sink rinsing of greens is remarkably effective, so if you plan on producing much in the way of salad mix, invest in some sort of two sink system, ideally one in which you can over flow one sink into the other, and then be constantly draining the dirtier sink.  In our case, we start with unrinsed greens on the left, dump them into the left sink, which is constantly recieving overflow water from the right sink, and also constantly draining just fast enough to keep it from overflowing.  After swishing them around a bit in that sink, they are transferred by the handful to the sink on the right, which has fresh water constantly flowing into it from the spigot, and from there into the salad spinner.  We end up with very clean greens, even when we are washing spinach which can start pretty muddy.  
Another wash station insight is to line it up in the right order, so you are going from field to cooler, with space to stack unwashed, and easy access to the cooler on the clean side. 
We have not done this yet, but it's in the works for us;  a hands-free wash station, with a foot-operated valve, and stationary sprayer, would save a lot of time with things like beets and carrots, which need their leaves culled as you wash them.  This will be one of the alterations we're making for this spring. 
 
Curtis and Sarah Millsap
Millsap Farm
Springfield MO
C 839-0847
www.millsapfarms.com


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Message: 7
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2011 13:09:30 -0600
From: Jennifer Vazquez <vazquez AT iastate.edu>
To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [Market-farming] vegetable washing/processing floor plans
Message-ID:
    <AANLkTi=Jnk=87rE8_Pp=HvtcmnJWSeZ85wCoEToJ0NOo AT mail.gmail.com>
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Hello,

I'm in the process of starting a CSA and I'd like to convert a small section
of one of our barns into a vegetable washing area.  Does anyone know of a
good place to look for floor plans, materials, things like that?  Also, are
there any regulations to know of if I want to grind grain (corn, buckwheat,
millet, etc) in the same room?

Thanks in advance,
Jenny

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End of Market-farming Digest, Vol 97, Issue 24
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