How do YOU Clean Your Greens?

My process for cleaning spinach, mustard, collard, and turnip greens I grow takes FOREVER.

And, reality finally hit me -- I probably have still eaten a tiny worm or two...

How do YOU do it?

I use Bt so I don't have worms in the first place. Good tumble wash and they are ready for plate or pot.

Farmerdill,
Please tell me how to use the Bt so I don't have worms in the first place!

Thanks!

I usaully used the dust form DIPEL about every 14 days or afetr each rain whicevr come first. Sometimes if I have several hundred plants I will mix up the liquid form Thuricide and spray. Usually That is for mass greens like turnip, mustard, etc. Works wonders on worms (caterpillar) harmless to everything else. Of course if you do have worms , the brine soak works well to remove them. Winter greens sometimes get aphids, and the brine soak works well for those also.

I assume you don't really mean "worms". Are you talking about snails/slugs, caterpillars, or something else?

I just rinse leafy vegetables under cold running water to get the dirt, bugs and most larva off and don't worry about the possibility of eating a bug or bug egg now and then. They're high in protein aren't they? For corn, I just cut off the parts where the worms have been dining and after a good rinse, throw them in the already boiling pot for exactly 10 minutes.

In the vegetable world they are called worms, but actually we are talking about butterfly and moth larvae. Cabbage worm, Cabbage looper, hornworm etc.

Got it.

Since I have so many of my tropical plants outside, on the ground, during the warm month, I often find worms in the pots. When someone purchases one of these plants, and re-pots it, whey will usually find the worm(s) and think something terrible has invaded the pot. LOL. I have to assure them (they are usually "city" folks) that worms are a good sign of soil health, not something bad. One nice lady, living in New York City actually flushed them all, even after I told her they were beneficial. I still chuckle, nine month later.

Ken

>> I just rinse leafy vegetables under cold running water to get the dirt, bugs and most larva off

Me, too. I do try to cut them in the beds so as to leave as much dirt as possible behind. If I'm keeping up with chores, I've removed and eaten floppy outer leaves BEFORE they droop into the soil and get filthy.

I start with a quick rinse of mostly-whole heads. Then I do some cutting up so they fit better in my big plastic spaghetti-strainer ("colander"?) Then I run water over that while turning the leaves something like a compost heap, and try to rub while I turn.

If I plan to use a big pot, I may bury them all in water and dunk-and-rub rather than run water over them (to save water.

I try not to think about anything smaller than a slug. I am repulsed when I fund a slug buried in-between Bok Choy stems, but I'm a wussy-sissy about slugs.

Centipedes are nasty, but don;'t have as much yuck-factor as big, fat slugs.

Rick,
Right now I sure WISH you could hear me laughing out loud!

I clean huge leaves! And, none that have been on the ground in the dirt. I periodically trim off any leaves that have "bit the dirt". Also, I'm usually harvesting in the fall-winter when there aren't ANY bugs/worms on my greens.

I was late planting this fall, and am harvesting the last of the greens before the heat sets in and the buggies come out of the shoot like race horses, LOL!

THANKS, YA'LL!

This message was edited Mar 18, 2014 8:35 PM

>> I'm usually harvesting in the fall-winter when there aren't ANY bugs/worms on my greens.

Smart!

Just picture my face when I THOUGHT one head was already clean and I was chomping some sweet Bok Choy stems I had torn off ... THEN saw this BIG, fat disgusting slug ooze out from behind the next stem I was going to eat!

There is some ad where the guy jumps and shrieks at a bug or spider, and the voice-over says something about "the girlie-est man ever".

That would be me.

GG, I'm really surprised that you saw a horn worm this early and on a beet leaf no less.

If you have ever had a problem with leafminers on your greens you have eaten worms. Lol

Lisa,
I tear off all the leaves that have leaf miners! Didn't think of them as worms.

Thanks - I think, LOL!

I HEAR yah Rick!

Last year I cleaned some ruffly edged kale a friend grew. I put it in baggies in the fridge.

The next morning I grabbed that kale to stuff in my Nutribullet to make green smoothies. I was tearing off handfuls and turned to do something at the sink with a chunk in my hand. As I whipped around a HUGE cutworm fell on the counter!

I nearly died, cause that was to be the next handful of kale going into the blender...

Which is why it takes me
FOR-E-VER to clean greens...

Linda,

I wash my greens in a big sink of cold water for first wash. Swish them around several times, then pull out by hand fulls, drain in other sink. Refill the sink with more cold water, add about a half cup vinegar, then swish around again several times, pull out and lightly rinse handfuls in running cold water to elminate most vinegar, coarse drain in second sink, then spin in my salad spinner bowl to get really dry. Once dry it will stay good in fridge for several days.

David

Thx, D!