Yes, I agree, if you can invest, then do so. I wasn't able to and now not able since I'm not doing any markets this year. We were barely making a survival living when we started and after several years, we've wore ourselves out, but have learned alot. I'm not afraid to ask if some company, that has just replaced something, what they are going to do with the removed item. Great thing is sometimes you can get it just for picking it up. May not last forever, but gets you started.

Even if I'm not doing markets this year, I'll still be here for questions and opinions.

Boulderbelt - how do you cool your greens? Anything I can do with a home-sized salad spinner (for now) and a regular fridge? I need to cut lettuce and bring it to market next Friday, want to have the coolest freshest possible. Pick that AM and cool in ice water, then fridge, then pack in cooler, or best to pick the day b4 and let it sit in fridge overnight?

That's where ideology can affect your actions. I find refrigeration of fresh produce, since it uses up energy, is 'less organic'. I also believe that you should buy fresh food as you consume it and you shouldn't be buying so much that it is sitting uneaten in the fridge for several weeks.

But I totally get that lots of people don't think that way!!! :)

Yep at my farm I don't have yet I will have a much better situation and a fridge and freezer and ice maker!
I am looking at a restaurant style 2.5 gallon salad spinner for $75. I used my home one for market prep yesterday- in my kitchen and filled it over and over. I actually had the time yesterday but usually wouldn't (I am already getting so fast and streamlined this year it is eerie!). I would prefer to not bring stuff home and wash and chill here but wash and put in coolers with ice at the field. Some people pick up at the farm for CSA right after I pick so i cannot bring the stuff home. And when you aren't sure about cabbage worms in broccoli you have to soak before then.
Lucy I used the salt and vinegar thing in my sinks yesterday and will now bring it to my improving wash station at the farm. I actually had a poster at OG forum tell me I should let people know when I soak veg in salt water in case they are on a low sodium diet. She is something else that Breezy Gardener!
The washed and chilled greens do hold up better. Someone at Homegrown Goodness says for head lettuce to not cut but pull and leave some root and then put in cold water. i guess I might as well do that. The head leafy lettuce sold way better at market yesterday than the cut baby leaves washed and ready in a bag. Go figure.

What does the salt and vinegar do?

My lettuce is all growing just outside the house, so chilling in fridge is not a problem.

I'm definitely pulling Romaine, I might have to pull Salad Bowl too though I prefer to cut, I have to think of a way to package (or sell it loose) w/o weighing it since I don't have a certified scale. What do you think about quart clamshells filled with mixed greens?

I've heard about the salt, it encourages bugs to leave. Don't know about vinegar. If you use either, you need to post that. Both salt or vinegar can affect people's diet.

I've sold loose leaf lettuce in bags, just a hand full or two. One time I offered to sell bags of lettuce (I had several coolers full), I priced the bag at $1 per bag and let the customers fill to their own. Only had 1 customer that stuffed the bag (got her money's worth), she stuffed probably 3 lbs in a t-shirt bag, but she won't need to tear or cut it since she damaged so bad. Hope she liked it.

I've seen Salad Bowl cut as heads, the grocery sells it that way. If you do leave the roots on, the plant will continue to grow if you put in water. I've also seen them sold in clamshells.

Marla

I have never informed my customers about the wash water unless they ask and have never had a problem in over 16 years of doing this this way. The salt and vinegar will wash off and the amount is miniscule as it is at under 1%. The salt helps to hydrate the produce as well as removing slugs and disinfects. The vinegar disinfects and softens the water so that dirt falls off the produce much better.

I chill the produce using well water which comes out at around 47ÃÂF. I do not use any ice as that would make the water too cold for a lot of things like arugula. Right after chilling the stuff gets spun than into the fridge. You can use a home sized salad spinner but it will take a while to do a few bushels of greens and you cannot do large heads of lettuce without damaging them in a small spinner. i think the mesh bag method works better for greens than a small salad spinner. but a commercial one as Minnie points out is under $100 and that is not much money to invest in one's business especially if it shaves an hour or two off of prep time.

Any fridge will do but I would not use the home fridge unless you can empty it the day before every farmers market as you will need all the space you can get. But one can pick up used fridges for no much and if you keep your eyes open you can often pick up a 2 or 3 door commercial fridge for under $1000 (normally used these go for $3K to $7K). Or consider going the walk in route using a Cool-Bot for the compressor and building an insulated 8' x 10 room

I used to do the harvest right before use for farmers markets but got tired of the 20 hour days and losing a lot of good produce in the heat. I do harvest most things for my CSA members the day they pick up, but not everything and for the farm store refrigeration is necessary or I would be tossing out a lot of food that stays perfectly fine in the fridge.

My refrigerators are home-style. My son used to pick up the used ones when apartment complexes would change them out. I have 3, they are only used for extra space. After they wear out the rest of the way, they are recycled. It's much harder to find used ones cheaply, since alot of people are 'scrapping' for a living.

Marla

Well, I've got a dorm-sized fridge as well as our kitchen one if refrigeration is necessary. Cold well water is no problem - our well is over 500ft deep so water is COLD! Just wondering if it was better to harvest day OF (and do cold water and cooler) or day BEFORE market (and do cold water and fridge, then pack in cooler for market)?

How much vinegar and how much salt per gal of water? Sorry, I really need this spelled out for me.

Step 1: Rinse dirt off heads
Step 2: Cold water/vinegar salt soak? For how long?
Step 3: Cold water rinse
Step 4: Spin dry (can you spin whole heads in a mesh bag and keep them intact?)

Thanks, going to try this method this week. Not too much lettuce this year, but if it sells well I will plant earlier next year (we had 70's and 80's in March!) and do succession planting as long as I can (testing this year to see how long I can grow it b4 it gets too hot - July can really be scorching), so will get a commercial spinner. I can afford $100, but commercial fridge or Col-Bot will have to wait.

I believe it will depend upon how much time you have the day of market, and how much stuff you have to pick.

I didn't soak my leaf lettuce very long (no salt/vinegar), maybe 5 minutes.

You will find that there are alot of things that will need to be purchased as you go along, and deciding what to buy first is hard. Take things as you can, and over the winter keep your eyes out for bargains, or someone going out of business. You never know what you might find. That's how we got our greenhouses.

We've used a device similar to the Cool-bot for many years on our small cooler. Dad built the unit back before I was born and it has seen a lot of produce pass through it. It's an external thermostat that has to be hooked into the air conditioner. We had to replace the actual AC unit a couple years ago with a new one and it works OK but the unit tends to freeze up. That's where the Cool-bot is superior IMHO - it has a defrost cycle to prevent that. For us it's an easy work around as we simply turn the unit to fan for an hour or so a couple times a week while we are out there working. The only real problem I see with the Cool-bot is the expense. By the time you get the AC unit big enough to do the job and buy the Cool-bot controler your getting about 1/2 the cost of what you can get a self contained (one peice) cooling unit for. The self contained unit is more efficient (the AC units have to run a lot to keep space cool meaning lower life span and higher power costs).

Here at the south farm I have an old True brand pop cooler like you see at gas stations. I see them from time to time for sale for a $100 or so (I got mine from a local park department - the doors had been broken so I built an insulated wooden door for it). It's nice and roomy inside and I can adjust the shelves to what hight I need much easier than a regular fridge.

Tom

I probably use 1/8th tsp of salt and 1/4 cup vinegar per gallon of water. I don't rinse as I don't sell anything as ready to eat and it would add 1/3 additional time.

I keep heads of lettuce intact, though i also do a lot of leafy things like baby lettuce, spring mix, arugula. As well as the large leaf greens like kale and chard.

A dorm sized fridge is useless as it is too small to fit in much more than maybe 1/2 bushel of anything and I will assume everyone is doing far more than that for any given market. A home sized fridge is generally too small once as well especially if you are harvesting anything more than say 20 heads of lettuce in addition to other greens. but 1 to 3 will do for a while until you grow out of the small space.

personally I use a 3 door reach in (it's about 12' x 5'x 7') that i got 10 years ago for $800 (and that was a real steal) and a couple of years ago got a 2 door glass front reach in Coke cooler for $250 plus a lot of other stuff was tossed into that deal including a digital scale so really the fridge costs around $100. But I would not get such a fridge again as it really sucks electric (the 3 door runs on about $7 a month, the glass front about $35, though it is smaller, it is also about 30 years older and that is the problem, age.)

So does the food industry tell everyone they use formaldehyde in ground beef or real bleach in flour and baby carrots? Jeesh, just like I said. No you do not need to tell people you use a little salt or vinegar.

I did all my washing and packing for 3 CSAs in the house this evening due to the weather. I did not like that.

I think I will get a salad spinner but not until fall.

AJsmama this is what I did for leaf heads Thursday. Cut the head off (I guess it is better to pull out with roots then trim and wash the roots), swish in cold water. Put in a cooler with ice jugs. I put it right into the tub I was using at market then put that in the cooler. At market set out and add ice or frozen bottles to the tub and have a few inches of cold water. I bindered two heads together and sold for $3 because once they are not growing anymore they shrink in size apparently so a head was not enough for a family. I sold all but 1 of these.

Thanks Minnie - my Romaine is pretty big, I just trimmed some Salad bowl for us last night since some of that was getting big too. I figure $1 - $1.50 a head since that's what certified organic farm near us sells for and his heads were smaller plus I'm sure he asks more @ market than @ farm.

I put the cut leaves in a big thermos jug (tall, maybe 2 gal) with cold water and swished, then drained out the bottom twice. Took 3 batches in my mom's slightly larger spinner but I had enough for 10-12 people.

I will definitely just sell heads instead of loose leaf this week b/c I still haven't figured out packaging, will use 5 gal bucket I use for fermenting pickles (food grade) to rinse and spin in washing machine if I can find my lingerie bag (been a long time since I've worn anything "delicate" LOL)!

I don't grow that much, so unless I picked every head at once I wouldn't have bushels, and market is so small I doubt I'd sell that much even if I brought it. I'll let you know on Sat. At least this week we DID see traffic picking up around 4:30 instead of 5:30 (but I still don't see reason why they started at 3 this year instead of 4).

Not sure how much your grocery stores charge for produce ajsmama but you shouldn't be hesitant to charge more than $1-$1.50.

I cleaned out the fridge last night and found a paper bag of lettuce that we had prepped over two weeks ago and I had forgotten about - most of it was still good. That bag I had prepped by picking, chopping and placing in paper bags. No washing other than a quick rinse of the dirt right after picking. It didn't take me very long and I had two ladies who had purchased a bag each two weeks ago asking for it this past Saturday. We just had heads though. The one lady is older and has arthritic hands and can't cut it up well. I will have to start bagging a few heads for her.

Leaving the roots on worked fantastically this weekend. Many people remarked how 'fresh and pretty' the heads looked. We sold all but two. I picked them on Thursday evening so I was not rushed on Friday evening at all and just had rhubarb and prepping of our columbines to do.

After I spun the leaves (sorting through) I put the excess in gallon bags with damp (not wet) paper towels so we'll see how long they keep for me and my mom.

Baby beet greens and Swiss chard leaves didn't look too good after soaking for about 30 min. Any tips for washing and packing these? I was going to bundle the larger chard stalks to sell for cooking (same with kale), but wanted to sell the smaller leaves for salads.

I'm still looking for a NTEP scale for under $100...

Shiela, I wouldn't have soak them for that long, just a short cool dip, but I don't grow chard.

I spent $300 on my scale about 10 years ago and it's still going strong. One thing, my scale takes D cell batteries, so I don't have to spend alot to change out the batteries (they all do eventually). It's a Mettler Toledo, best thing after the canopy that I've bought.

I won't soak them that long next time, just did a rinse, filled the jug a 2nd time then grabbed some potato salad and kielbasa and drove up to my parents' house so that's why I'm figuring 30 min.

I'll look around for a decent scale. I just give them a good dunking, not so much of a 'soak'.

You need to give the lettuce or other greens time to hydrocool. Yesterday it was 90 when I picked and put everything into coolers with ice jugs and came home. You could feel the heat on the lettuce so I got it really cold in the sink before spinning and chilling.

AJsmama, I use the produce bags from the store for cut lettuce leaves and display in a cooler with ice in bottom and towel on top of that. The produce bags work fine. You can buy a roll from a produce manager if desired.

don't soak you leafy greens for more than 5 minutes. All you are doing is getting the heat out of them which in cold water should not take more than a minute for loose greens and no more the 4 to 5 minutes for a huge dense head of lettuce. 30 minutes in water will tend to ruin most greens.

Thanks Minnie, I save most produce bags (and bread bags, though I don't know if customers would want those). Problem is, I don't think I'm allowed to sell loose greens without a certified scale. I can sell bunches of things like chard, but don't know about "bunching" loose leaf lettuce.

Lucy - next time I'll drain the lettuce before taking it to my mom, I certainly wouldn't let it soak as long before market - but do beet greens or baby chard/kale soak at all?

Sure you can sell it without a scale. In a bag for a bag price. $3 per bag- don't mention weight. I weigh mine to be sure they are all equal but don't advertise a weight. I put the bags in an open cooler with ice jugs on bottom. I make sure the bags are open and exposed so people see the greens. then I rotate them every so often to the bottom of the cooler.
A bag of lettuce is no different than a quart of broccoli or a pint of peas.

I think my state requires that any closed container be labeled with a weight or volume. Even standard half pint jelly jars have to be labeled by volume (ounces and ml). So I can sell heads of lettuce, or pints of tomatoes, but no bags of loose leaf lettuce or mixed greens. I might be able to let a customer fill their own container without weighing it, but then I have to look into health regulations with letting them touch the produce (though there's no problem letting them pick out their own cukes or zukes or big tomatoes).

I can sell chard, kale, etc. by the bunch - maybe I can find a way to bundle lettuce leaves? But seems easier to just cut the head, even though I'd like to cut and come again.

Regulations are confusing - cut, washed and packaged lettuce could be considered "processed" and then I'd have to have a commercial kitchen. But in Unit Pricing and Scales section it does mention "clearly marked containers" such as "Blueberries, $4.00/pint" so if I could figure a suitable container I might be able to sell lettuce, GAP include "rinsing" produce though I am not allowed to "wash" it, and I don't know about cutting lettuce - definitely can't sell cut cucumbers, tomatoes, etc. But don't you harvest broccoli by cutting the stem? Lettuce you can cut the head or pull it, I just don't know about leaves. Of course, if you're selling herbs or chard or anything by the bunch it's been cut. Very confusing.

Get a container that is a consistent size, doesn't matter what size, and label as box. "Box" doesn't have a ounce/ml associated with it.

As far as letting customers touch, get a set of plastic tongs for them to use, like convenience store use for donuts.

Rinsing is with clear water, or just a bit of salt/vinegar. WASHING means you're guaranteeing that the produce is ready to eat and completely clean.

Cutting lettuce, broccoli is not classified as cutting, but 'harvesting'.

I think you're over thinking. If you do wrong, they will tell you. If you are wrong, the only thing that you will need to do, after they tell you, is politely thank them for educating you and remove the items, and mark NOT FOR SALE. While you have them at your stand, ask them questions, LOTS of questions--it will show them that you WANT to learn.

Great advice, Marla.

I get bogged down in the details sometimes too and it is good to remember if you do it wrong - you just stop doing it wrong.

And hope that you remember what you did wrong.

I do not sell anything *as* washed/ready to eat! But I don't see a difference between cutting off a broccoli head and putting it in a quart basket and cutting off some lettuce or other leafy item and putting it in a bag or container.

Some people do, but marketing as 'washed' is a processed, versus 'rinsed' is a harvest term. Just technicalities.

In most states you have the "one cut" rule which allows for things like lettuce and broccoli to be cut in the field with a knife without needing a certified kitchen to "process" the produce in. But if you trim up anything after it has been harvested with a knife than you are required to have a certified kitchen in many states if you sell off of your farm. if all your sales are on farm than you can do whatever you want and that is what I have done by dropping farmers markets and doing all CSA and farm store sales.

Interesting

In CT a stall at a certified farmer's market is considered an extension of your own farm, so you can sell jams, jellies, syrups, pickles (with some extra safeguards) at market. But still can't sell baked goods or "processed" foods without a commercial kitchen and proper license. Never heard of the "one cut" rule, it makes sense (cut the stem of a watermelon or cuke to separate it from the vine, but can't cut the fruit itself). Not sure if it only applies to the stem of a fruit or green, though. I still think cutting higher up to separate individual leaves to sell loose might count as "processing" even if it's done in the field. And definitely can't sell anything "washed" as in ready-to-eat.

Oh, well, I'm going to try to cut or pull some whole heads tomorrow, but I have seen kale and chard bunched so I'll do that too, will have to see if one of the other 2 produce vendors at market is selling greens and how they're presented.

In Indiana, we have a rule that allows us to sell jams and jellies, and baked goods. But NO pickles, salsa or canned goods. This rules only allows at farmers markets, at home you still need the certified kitchen IF you SELL it.

In Ohio we have cottage industry rules that allow baked goods, granola, dried herbs, pickles and other things that do not involve dairy and eggs (cream pies for example). But farmers markets are NOT considered an extension of the farm at all so things must be labeled properly, I know bagged greens have a whole bunch of new rules, eggs have to be fridges, frozen meats in running freezers.

But if you sell off the farm you are pretty much exempt from all rules with a few exceptions about selling beef and pork (you cannot kill/process it yourself)

and these rule change often 2x to 3 x a year.

There are no exemptions from any rules for selling on-farm vs at market here. In fact, the stall at a *certified* market is considered an extension of your farm, so you're allowed to sell the same things. But can't be "washed", sold as "ready to eat", baked goods are not included (you need a bakery license and commercial kitchen), everything packaged must be sold by weight (NTEP Class III scale) or volume, labeled with ingredients in descending order by weight if more than 1 ingredient (as in my salad mix), etc.

Certified markets are the ONLY places you can sell other than your farm - even another farmer can't put your stuff in their farm store unless you have a wholesaler's license, a nearby beef/pork farm wanted to add my jams and jellies but couldn't (would also need a commercial kitchen in that case), and I can't sell my berries to a bakery to use in their muffins, or sell edamame to a restaurant either.

BTW, where do you learn all the rules? When I have looked stuff up before it was unclear, incomplete and confusing. We tend to just discuss at market for info.

TAlk to your local Board of Health, or the equivalent. They'll be able to tell you or lead you in the right direction.

Different states have different rules to abide by. Plus different localities could have additional rules on top of the state rules. Not sure how Canada handles it.

Marla

In Ohio, at least, farmers markets are regulated by the state dept of Ag/co-operative extension. County health may know the regs but often they also slip in their own regs which farmers do not operate under (but people selling baked goods and other prepared foods do) which confuses an already confusing business.

So check out your state dept of Agriculture for farmers market regulations and not the local health people. Of course too many State Dept. of Ag websites are badly set up and incredibly frustrating to use and talking to a real person too often is not much better.

In Indiana, it's the Board of Health that controls how you can sell thing, check with whichever county you plan on selling in. Dept of Weights and Measures deals with your scale.

CT Dept of Ag has a fairly good website, but I've also had to deal with local (county) Health Dept, state Dept of Consumer Protection (Food Division), and Dept of Revenue Services (sales tax). I guess there's a Weights and Measures division for scales, but not sure if that's in Ag or CP Dept, maybe even separate dept?

Ok. I have only been on my state Dept of Ag website and it not only doesn't make sense, it doesn't seem to have what I am looking for. So I have taken the advice of the market manager and experienced sellers over the years instead. Calling the Dept is a good suggestion.

Here is my little washing station; this year in the shade.
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I have a tub for washing and a tote with a scale, bags, vinegar, salt, towel and twist ties. I put baskets, rubber bands, gloves, bucket with water and a bag or two in the picking cart and try to 'drive' through the garden- which this year has a nice middle path- all in one swoop and pack up nice and efficently. I have the coolers by the station and I tape the list of what everyone gets onto that trailer next to me. I leave the farm pick up coolers in the shade there and take the others with me. I park my truck right next to the station. The only problem is wind. But the shade is definitely nice on these hot days. It is pretty good for my situation of leasing the land, not owning.

If you don't have trees for shade than use your EZ-Up or other shelter. At the old farm we had zero shade on the farm so bought a new 30' x 15' shelter, the kind with the silver tarp over top from Harbor Freight for about $150 and that stead us well for about 7 years (though it did get badly damaged by the remnants of Hurricane Katrina when that hit Ohio but nothing that some simple blacksmithing, duct tape and bailing twine didn't remedy).

And this would be a use for the EZ-UP side walls few people ever can find a use for. if it's windy than put up a side or two to block the wind

I've used the side curtains as tarps in many situations, they just aren't as sturdy. Being white does help with the heat.

Just cut a lot of looseleaf (Salad Bowl) and 4 heads of iceberg - the heads aren't forming well, 1 is over 1 lb, 1 is 12 oz, and 2 are around 7 oz each. How best to price?

I do have lots of the outer leaves, picked through to remove any browning, they are nice and crisp so figured I could sell them loose. Last week my already-bagged SB and Romaine didn't sell that well, seems like things sold better in heads or packed to order (not by lb but by gallon bag) out of a 2-gal bucket at market, but it was a lot harder to keep the bucket cool and crisp than the bags in the cooler (other than some problems with bags touching ice and some spots freezing).

Any suggestions for packing/transporting/selling the loose stuff?

Oh, yes I do remember Marla saying a smaller bowl in a big bowl of ice for selling (kind of same idea as my bucket, if I put in a larger bucket of ice). But how to efficiently transport? Bag and then dump bags into bowl/bucket at market (just to bag again - doesn't seem efficient)? Buckets just take up so much room in the cooler, I can only fit 2 buckets.

I think I'll need a 2nd cooler for heads and I still want to pick arugula, etc.

Take buckets, empty. Put lettuce in cooler in large bags. Put ice in larger bucket, lettuce in smaller bucket, insert smaller bucket into larger bucket, fill remaining 'sides' with ice. I used to buy ice cubes on the way to market.

Or just put ice in bottom of cooler and display lettuce within cooler. Tip cooler so customers can see produce. I've done that several times.

I had between 15-20 coolers at one time. Found alot of them at yard sales at end of season. Try to get same height whenever possible. I still have 5 or so left. If you get the same height, they'll create a platform to put more items on top.

Marla

Well, my 2 gal buckets were full, I did put a skinny ice pack between them in cooler, should have brought my 5 gal soy sauce buckets to put ice in but they're so big. I just kept sticking buckets back in cooler and would cover with wet towel when not bagging or fluffing

I did display head lettuce and bags of arugula in a big SS bowl with margarine tub block of ice covered with towel in middle, then lettuce put on top of towel. Later near end of market packed the bowl away and just displayed heads in small cooler on top of 2 tubs of ice but didn't sell any.

I don't know if anyone sold lettuce today - DS said someone (prob. MM as the only other produce vendor looked like she just had herbs and jellies) was selling lettuce $2.50/half lb (??). I was asking $4/head and my biggest head was over 1 lb, figured I'd lower price as heads got smaller but none sold. Did sell a couple of gallons of looseleaf, and 2 women asked for 1/2 gal so I eyeballed it - then 1 said she wanted mix so I had to eyeball a quart of each! Still have 2 buckets full in cooler in basement. DH will have to try to sell it tomorrow while I'm away.

some days things don't sell. I don't have a good time with lettuce.