How do you wash garden lettuce ?

We are just now getting a fantastic crop of beautiful huge Red Sails and
Romaine lettuce.

It sure is time consuming and a pain to get it washed for table use. I usually wash 3 times....... and it looks about like a dishrag when I'm through. Especially the delicate Red Sails, it's so tender.

This question would probably be more appropriate in the cooking forum, or maybe even in the healthy living forum, but really I figured you gardeners who grow your own would know best.

We fertilize with chicken manure, and I'm always afraid of the ole Salmonella
bacteria. So I wash my poor lettuce to death. Any helpful suggestions ? Am I guilty of overkill ? What do you do ?

The reason for this question: Yesterday I picked a large head of the Red Sails, washed it ragged, and made myself a great big salad for lunch. An hour later I was in the bathroom with salmonella-style.... ahhem, ya know. Thought I had been food poisioned. Was crampy, weak and sickly for about an hour, but recovered , and on with my day. If it was bacterial, it was gone in a flash, and Flash is putting it mildly. :(( No other lettuce or any other veggie has ever done that to me. Never ate Red Sails before........ is there something I should know about it.... Is it like prunes or something ? If it is, I overdosed ! Maybe just a little of the Red Sails is good, ..... but a whole salad of it, bad ?

Now, y'all stop that laughing....... I'm serious. I am steering clear of that stuff till I figure out if I just didn't wash it enough........ or it's a 'special' lettuce.
Seems like if it would have been bacterial, like salmonella or something, I wouldn't have recovered so fast.

Humor is the best medicine, but it weren't too funny yesterday. :) But now I can laugh about it .

Somebody clue me in, here. Tell me what ya know. Or even what ya think.

Now that DH heard this, I can't sell him on any of the garden stuff you eat raw.

I only use fully composted manure on any crop I will be eating raw. I have never had a problem but I have read that bacteria can grow into the lettuce, spinach, green onions etc... from green manures. I am not very knowledgeable about the science just know that "good agricultural practices" say not to use uncomposted manures on food crops.

I wash in cold water, just push the lettuce around so that the dirt falls to bottom of the sink then do a second wash. It is important to take the "field heat" from the lettuce soon after picking. I shake water off and run thru spinner. Then I put in bag in crisper of fridge so it will crisp back up. Did you use one of those "produce" washes from the grocery store?

No, I just used plain tap water from the kitchen sink.

Hmmmm. The manure fertilizer I referred to, is actually dirt that was taken from the area where the chicken pen was last year. I mixed some of it into the dirt in the raised beds early this spring. Now I'm wondering if I need to just pull up all the lettuce, spinach and green onions and throw them into the compost. Sounds like I made a big mistake.
Now that you mention it, seems like I remember the spinach and lettuce that was recalled in the stores last year because of the bacterial contamination that came up into the produce from the soil.

From what you're telling me about how you wash lettuce, I'd say I'm probably ok with the technique I've used. Sounds like it is something in the lettuce rather than on it.

I'm surprised I didn't get sicker, and for longer, if that's what it was.

This brings up another question...........

Are lettuce, spinach and green onions the only vegs that this can happen with ? Now I'm worried about the tomatoes and cukes..... we eat them raw too. I used some of the same dirt in those raised bed boxes too. The plants are all so beautiful and lush looking.

Like I said I am not an authority but I would not worry about tomatoes, cukes etc. Seems it is the leaves etc and not the fruit. This is about the most basic article I can find and it's pretty scientific. http://groups.ucanr.org/UC_GAPs/Key_Points_-_Edible_Landscape_and_Home_Gardening/

I still us manure in the soil like you do just not on leaf crops. I till it in in the fall so it has time to breakdown during the winter. I am not surprised that plants take up microbes as we all know they absorb pesticides and other chemicals. Just have to remember that anything we grow can be significantly better than anything we can buy!

I don't think the greens "take up" the bacteria, as it were. Rather, the greens have more surface area and therefore more nooks and crannies that the bacteria can find shelter in. You can wash (scrub) a tomato, and the mechanical action of the scrubbing is what really allows you to clean it off. It's the same principle of why you use a tooth brush, not just mouth wash.
Plants won't harbor a pathogen like an animal reservoir will. That being said, I would certainly steer clear of using uncomposted chicken manure. Hot composting should be adequate for sterilizing the manure (although on this I am less certain than the above comments).

They reported that the spinach last year actually had the e-coli in the leaf. There are allot of "voluntary" practices being observed by growers of leafy greens. Part of the problem is that if there is a little bacteria present, the washing water spreads it. I know people that wash their green under running water. The stuff they put on lettuce to preserve it doesn't agree with me. I take leafy greens and herbs to farmer's market and am very careful about what they come in contact with.

From now on, I think I will make it a point to get all my dirt mixed into the raised beds in the fall rather than spring. At least that will give it more time.

Mtroo, that's what I thought too. Thus the extra washing until the stuff looked like a dish rag. But then, .... now that I think about it, I remember it being in the news that it was in the produce thru the uptake process from the soil.

It's funny how I was so careful to not buy those produce products when that was in the news during the recalls.........and then I never gave it a thought when growing my own. Goes to show how excited I was to see Springtime and gardening come finally. I must have gotten into a planting frenzy and forgot.

This whole subject completely blind-sided me......I never saw it coming the other day. Although I was so paranoid about buying the store produce. Crazy.

Grammy, you mentioned that washing it tends to spread it ?





This message was edited May 20, 2008 11:16 PM

You know, I've always been afraid of using chicken manure for that reason!

I do use composted horse and fresh rabbit manure and have never had any problems. I just rinse with well water.

This is a sad lesson. :(( I'm getting ready to go out and pull up my lettuce and spinach and throw it in the compost...or feed it to the chickens. Such a disappointment to watch it grow and see it be so beautiful....and then have to do this. It was such fun growing it, with no bugs or diseases to fight yet. I guess I've learned a lesson though. Seems like the lessons learned that are painful, are the ones we don't forget easily.

And I was so proud of how 'organic' I was doing everything.

Heading for the garden, kicking myself all the way.

Better than heading to the toilet, again
:)

I do like Granny.I put ice cubes in mine though to keep water cold an lettuce crisp.Then I use spinner. I wash it till water clears.Only once or twice. I am mostly organic so never has a pesticide been Used,"SO FAR'. I never put raw animals manure in my garden where the food is eaten raw.Mostly compost and kelp .Some fish emulsion away from plants .

I am not having any luck with corn . But peppers are all over my plants now and beans are blooming. Tomatos are looking good too .

late planting watermelons .

Thank you for your help. At least now, I feel more confident that I was at least getting my lettuce washed adequately.

I went ahead and pulled it all up yesterday evening. Yep, that was bad.... but like you said, better than the alternative. It was absolutely gorgeous, big beautiful heads as big as a basketball, all curly tipped with the deep red, and not a flaw anywhere on them. Sigh.............

I think the soil must be really rich there. (It should be, I fertilized it.)
I'm thinking maybe corn now. It likes ultra fertile soil since it is a heavy feeder.

Skipping to the garden.... with hope anew............. singing "Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care....Jimmy crack corn and I don't care..."

At least now I can skip around WITHOUT my shirt tail tucked into my back collar ! ! ! hehe

Whew, I won't be making that mistake again with the leafy vegs.

Hope all newbies are paying attention, here. Good to know.

Happy gardening to all, PeggieK

I read that you mix 1 tsp Clorox bleach in one gallon of water and soak leafy vegetables for 15 minutes, then drain rinse and soak in clean water for 20 minutes. Has anyone tried this and is it safe???

I pulled up the lettuce and did away with it.......but now a question along the same lines about the spinach.

I know I should not use it raw like for a salad. But would it be ok to blanch it and use it for frozen , cooked spinach ? I'm wondering if it would be made 'safe' by the blanching in boiling water, then cooking at time of preparation for dinner ?

What's your opinion ?

I think if it were me I'd sure hate to throw away all that spinach without testing. I'd cook a little and try it out just on myself. If it actually *were* ecoli, boiling doesn't deactivate the toxin. What you described seemed more a personal reaction to the particular type of lettuce but I sure ain't no doc.

Edit a oops... Salmonella is an infection which is different... It has a incubation period of I think 2 to 3 days and requires you to have gotten what is called an infective dose. Ecoli toxins work faster since they are what is actually a food poisoning caused by a toxin and not an infection.









This message was edited May 27, 2008 9:35 AM