We get lots of greens here at Red Wagon CSA (yay!) so I thought I would show people how I store my lettuce and cut greens for maximum freshness and ease of use.

We weigh, bag, and seal the lettuce or greens right before you pickup your CSA share. Everything is harvested, rinsed off in the wash station at the farm and packed loose in the big white coolers each and every day. We set up the tent and tables at the CSA pickup, then start bagging lettuce and greens. We weigh each bag so each is portioned exactly. Then we seal the bags with the red ties.

You can store the greens in the sealed bag you get them in from us if you like, but remember; you still need to wash everything before you eat it. Greens will last at least 4 or 5 days stored as is.

I like to have my greens ready to eat, so I wash and dry them right when I get home so they are ready to cook or eat for meals during the week. I find they last a little longer too, at least a week and maybe a little longer if I take this extra step.

I carefully snip the little red tape that seals the bag. I reuse the bag for cut greens like baby kale and spinach. That is why I don’t just rip into the bags. I like to store my lettuce and arugula in a salad spinner. I only have one salad spinner. If I had more I would use it to store more of the greens.

I wash the greens or lettuce and drain it and give them a good spin to really get them good and dry.

I just store the washed and dried lettuce in the salad spinner and it is clean and ready to eat and keeps for at least a week like this.

I wash and spin all the greens I get, then I dry out the bag if I I am reusing it. I use a paper towel to dry it, and then I fold up the paper towel and leave that in the bag. The paper towel keeps the moisture in the bag even, so you don’t get those weird slimy leaves that make the whole bag go bad.

Now my lettuce and greens are clean and easy to grab and use.

It just takes a few minutes to do and I find I and more inclined to use the produce if it is ready to eat.

I hope this is helpful.

Have a great week.

Mo