Wash Line Photos and SOP

Summary

We wash double or triple wash leafy greens in clean solid green plastic crates that sit in the 100 gallon stock tank shown below. This wash line is on cement slab floor in our covered 3-sides wash shed, just in front of our main cooler. Plastic crates are dumped are filled with potable water from the red hose, and drained into the plumbed stock tank, which likewise drains into a holding sub-ground holding tank, which overflows onto forest edge by a stone wall.

Steps

1. Fill clean, empty green slotted harvest totes about 1/3 full with greens mixed from harvest bins with pure varieties.
2. Plunge the crate with mix into the pristine potable water of the first green rinse crate.
3. Using your hands, gently push down and “mix” greens until they are submerged.
4. While gently agitating greens, cull any compromised product, insects, weeds, etc.
5. Lift the entire slotted crate out of the first rinse, let drain briefly above that first crate and then transfer to the second clean crate.
6. Repeat the submerging and gentle agitation of mix.
7. Lift and transfer the slotted crate from the second rinse to the third (if mix was very dirty) OR to the wash-table (or upsidown bulb crate) to drain briefly.
8. Hand-transfer entire washed mix from the slotted crate into the clean plastic liner inside the washing machine spinner and spin for approximately 2 minutes.
9. From the spinner, transfer dry salad mix into a clean grey plastic flip-top container—adjust greens quantity so that each 1 1⁄4 bushel crate holds 10 lbs of mix (unless otherwise directed.
10. Repeat this process using the cleaner second rinse water as the first-rinse water for the next slotted crate of greens.
11. Dump and replace the rinse –water after the first or second use—Never re-use the rinse water more than once!
12. Store dried and packed salad mix for local wholesale accounts off the floor in the cooler.