We work really hard to get our greens (kale, chard, broccoli raab, collards) to you fresh and full of life. Here’s how you can keep them that way.

If you store your greens properly they will stay fresh in your refrigerator for a week. Modern frost free refrigerators have moving air that will dehydrate food uncovered, so you need to keep your greens sealed in a plastic bag, or some sort of sealed container.

When you pick up your CSA share it would be best to put your greens in a plastic bag or container immediately at the pick up. We have bags available if you forget to bring your own. If you don’t want to use plastic you can use a cloth cotton bag. You need to rewet the cloth bag every day or the greens will wilt as soon as the cloth bag dries. You don’t want to pack the greens too tightly in the any bag or squish them either. they need to be stored loosely so some air can move around the leaves.

This is a bunch of kale that was harvested Friday and kept in a plastic bag in my refrigerator for three days. It looks just like it did when it was harvested.

This is a bunch of kale that was kept in my refrigerator unwrapped for 12 hours.

I’m sorry kale. I did it for the good of the blog.

The second bunch of kale is still edible. It is just dehydrated. You could cook it and it would be fine. If I left this bunch of kale much longer uncovered it would start to get slimy. Slime happens when the cell structure breaks down and the kale starts to decompose. When that happens you don’t want to eat it.

So, sealed and wrapped greens store nicely for one week in the refrigerator and unwrapped greens store for less than one day.