The processes and methods that I use in the garden continue to develop and change over
the seasons, and the way that I approach washing vegetables that I produce is no different.
It’s interesting to look back over the seasons to see how this has evolved, and to note some
of the recent changes that I’ve made.
A major driving factor behind a lot of this is the fact that I’m producing more and
more food each year, but there’s also been a change in the number and types of people
who are eating what I grow.
I’ve acquired some new equipment, and I’ve also picked up some really useful tricks along the way.
When I was growing vegetables mostly for our own use, i rarely washed anything in the gardens,
apart from maybe rinsing some of the soil off of the root vegetables.
I thought it was easier just to take everything home and wash it in the kitchen there, but
in the process I washed a fair amount of soil and fertility down the drain, and often made
a mess of the kitchen.
But things changed when I started to sell the surplus of what I was producing at an
honesty vegetable stand that I set up.
Rinsing everything seemed like a nice thing to do for my neighbours, and it prevented
the vegetable stand from becoming too dirty.
But I was also concerned about the possible presence of slugs and other creatures among
the vegetables, especially within the leafy salad crops.
I used to rinse heads of lettuce and other leafy vegetables under a running tap, and
used a garden hose to wash down the rest of the vegetables.
It wasn’t very thorough, but I figure I was reducing the risk of slugs and other creatures
making it to the vegetable stand, and was cleaning things up a bit.
I always assumed that people would wash all of the vegetables again before using them,
but then I found out that some of my neighbours were assuming that the salad was ready to
use because there was water on the leaves.
The leafy salad crops, such as spinach and lettuce, can be the hardest to clean adequately.
They are more likely to attract and hide slugs and insects, and because they tend to grow
close to the ground they're more likely to become dirty from soil being splashed up by
heavy rains or irrigation systems, or from dust being kicked up by the wind or the feed
off the passing grower.
A lot of leaves also have folds and crevices that are really good at trapping and hiding
soil particles and biodiversity.
I dread the idea of somebody finding a slug on their plate, or noticing a cluster of aphids
on the underside of a lettuce leaf that they’re about to eat, or being distracted by the grit from the spinach.
It would be a shame if people were put off eating local seasonal vegetables because of
this, especially after all the work that went into growing it.
Added to this were concerns about reports of people being infected with pathogens from
contaminated vegetables, and although I felt that the risk in my context was extremely
low, it caused me to think about how I needed to take more appropriate responsibility as a grower.
In the end, it came to a realisation that if I was going to wash anything at all, it
needed to be washed thoroughly and completely, especially the salad crops, and to do this
I needed to develop a better method.
At that time, I was already using large, open-topped containers of water, to help with watering
the polytunnel, and so I started using this large volume of water for washing the salad leaves.
The leaves floated and the dirt particles sank, and thankfully, so did the slugs, and
I was able to process a large volume of leaves at a time by gently rolling them over in the water.
There were some problems with this method.
There was often particles of compost, and aphids floating on the surface, and it was
difficult to keep the leaves clean as they were pulled out of the water.
I also had to keep this container really clean, and to fill it with fresh water before each harvest.
But it wasn’t always convenient to use up all of the old, slightly dirty water to water
the polytunnel with, especially as all of the floating particles, and soil, and even
the dead slugs were clogging up the watering cans.
So, I started using a smaller bucket, and washing less at a time, and changing the water more frequently.
And then one bucket became two, one for washing and another one for rinsing, and then eventually
it became three buckets in a row, one for washing, one for rinsing, and one for just
checking to make sure everything was clean.
So, the system I now use starts with three, food-grade 25 litre or 5 gallon buckets, which
I only use for washing vegetables, and are filled with fresh water for each harvest.
If the water in the first bucket gets too dirty while washing the vegetables, it gets
dumped somewhere in the garden that needs watering, the other two buckets are shifted
down, and a clean bucket of water is added to the end of the line.
If I notice any slugs, insects or debris in the third bucket, I know I need to fix something,
either change the water or take more care.
A simple kitchen sieve has been a valuable addition to the process, and I use it to skim
any floating debris, leaves or insects off of the surface of the water, and it keeps
everything cleaner for much longer.
The white bucket also makes it easier to notice any foreign objects, and by processing smaller
batches at a time, I can find and remove any damaged leaves, and any weeds that may have
been harvested with the crop.
It also helps me rescue any desirable critters, such as ladybird larva, which are really helpful
at keeping aphid populations under control,
and these beneficial insects get returned to the gardens.
Of course, this system isn’t foolproof, and no doubt an occasional critter or damaged
leaf or soil particle makes it through, but I’m quite satisfied with how clean everything ends up.
I’ve been using open slatted trays to transport and display vegetables on the stand, so any
excess water would easily drain away.
Some moisture on salad leaves will definitely help them last longer, but too much water
can be a hassle, so I figured the next improvement would be to work out some kind of salad spinner.
Because all of this washing takes place outside, I figured that the easiest way to do this
would be to collect the leaves in some kind of woven material or fabric, and then to spin
it around to get rid of a lot of the water.
I discovered that a piece of woven crop cover that I used, worked really well for this job.
I would place the leaves from the final bucket into the centre of this material, and then
gather up all the corners, and then spin it around and a lot of the water would fly off,
just like with a salad spinner, only at a much larger scale.
The bundle of leaves could be gently tumbled around to rearrange them, and then spun again,
removing any remaining pockets of water.
The results of all of this were pretty much the same as what I’d be able to achieve
at home, and so long as the leaves were kept clean until they got to the dinner table,
I felt that they didn’t need any further washing.
A final addition to this process was a pair fo waterproof gloves, which kept my potentially
dirty hands away from the clean vegetables.
They also helped to protect my hands, which were suffering a bit from being in the water
so often, and they made washing with frigid water on a cold morning much more bearable.
I use the same setup for washing all of the other vegetables that I harvest, keeping all
the soil and the fertility in the gardens where it belongs.
It also keeps the whole vegetable stand much cleaner, and prevents the salad leaves from
getting dirty again when my neighbours collect it with the other vegetables.
I’m starting to realise that washing everything in the garden also helps to conserve a lot
of water, or at least makes better use of the water that is used.
Because most of my neighbours don’t have grey water recycling systems, anything that’s
washed in the kitchen, literally sends water down the drain.
By doing all the washing in the gardens, and then using the water where it’s really needed,
especially in the polytunnels, a lot of water can be conserved.
It would be interesting to try to figure out just how much water is saved over the course
of a growing season.
For the scale that I’m at this setup works quite well.
It’s relatively easy to process several kilograms of salad leaves, which is about
how much I’d harvest on any given day, and I could process a lot more without having
change things too much.
Of course, I have to keep the buckets, the gloves and the sieve really clean, and to
keep them separate from the rest of the gardening equipment, and I always rinse the mesh and
hang it in the polytunnel so that it dries quickly.
No doubt this setup can be improved.
I could scale up a bit, and use larger buckets, but then they become more difficult to lift
and carry to the parts of the garden that need watering the most.
A longer work surface would help with some of the bending and stretching that I do, but
that’s a relatively small issue.
I’m quite interested in the dedicated washing stations that I’ve seen some other growers setup.
They can be really efficient, and make great use of equipment such as bubblers, modified
washing machines and high pressure sprayers.
Perhaps one day I will be growing and supplying at a scale that would make good use of this kind of kit.
For now, I quite like the setup that I have, I find it to be simple, cheap and effective.
I think its appropriate technology for the scale and context that I’m in, but I wonder
how it will evolve in the future.
Managing a vegetable garden takes a lot of work, but I think we underestimate the amount
of time that we spend harvesting and processing everything that we grow.
I’m going to be spending a fair amount of time in the coming months dealing with the
abundance that’s coming out of the vegetable gardens here, but that's not a bad way to
spend a summer.
I’m also going to be spending a lot of time making more videos, like this one, about the
diversity of things that I’m exploring in this project.
If you like my videos, and want to support my work in this RED Gardens project, please
follow the link to my Patreon Page linked here, or in the description below,
and as always, thanks for watching.