A Winter Harvest and Our New Dynamic Salad Spinner from Johnny's Selected Seeds
Another wonderful bounty of fresh vegetables from my greenhouse.
As you may know, I have a special greenhouse at my Bedford, New York farm where I grow organic vegetables in the ground, using very little heat, all winter long. I plant lots of vegetables to share with family and friends, but I also grow them to use at the office whenever they’re needed for magazine or television shoots. Recently, we received a large Dynamic Salad Spinner from Johnny’s Selected Seeds - it’s big enough to hold eight heads of lettuce at one time. After our latest harvest, we were eager to give it a try.
Here are some photos - enjoy.
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- Ryan, my head gardener, does a great job with succession planting, so we always have lots of delicious, fresh vegetables to pick. We depend on this greenhouse all winter long. This structure, which is essentially a cold house, was inspired by writer, Eliot Coleman, an expert in four-season farming.
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- After the vegetables are picked from the greenhouse garden, they are brought into my Flower Room, where they are washed and stored in the refrigerator.
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- Look at all these beautiful radishes. The radish is an edible root vegetable of the Brassicaceae family that was domesticated in Europe in pre-Roman times. Radishes are mostly eaten raw as a crunchy salad vegetable.
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- Laura checks all the vegetables for any leaves that need removing – these will go to the chickens who love snacking on greens.
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- Then Laura gently cleans the vegetables, removing any remaining soil.
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- These lettuces are so beautiful – they look like flowers. Everyone at the farm loves the lettuces I grow.
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- Here is the top of our giant Dynamic Salad Spinner from Johnny’s Selected Seeds. It spin-dries salad mix quickly, quietly, and efficiently.
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- Inside is a large five-gallon basket that is removable for easy filling, emptying and cleaning.
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- Laura seems pleased with how the spinner works so far – the lettuce is dry and crisp.
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- Here is the spun lettuce head. Laura will now be able to spin many heads at one time – it is so easy to do in this new Dynamic Spinner.
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- Next, Laura cleans a whole tub of tender, leafy spinach.
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- The spinach is washed very carefully in cool water – I love using spinach in my daily green juice. It is so refreshing after my morning workouts.
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- Laura places the spinach in the spinner’s handy basket.
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- And then Carlos gives it a whirl – this spinner will be great to use when preparing all our salad greens for entertaining.
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- Laura then removes the spinach from the basket. All the water from the spinach has drained out of the basket and into the larger receptacle.
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- Laura places the bunch on a dry towel while she finishes all the other vegetables.
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- Next, Laura washes those bright red radishes.
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- Look how gorgeous these radishes are – each one so perfect. Radishes are a great low-calorie snack; one cup of sliced radishes has only 19-calories.
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- Here are some of our freshly picked cucumbers. As many of you know, we grow them on trellises that we made right here at the farm.
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- Once all the vegetables are washed, Laura places them all in plastic bags in the refrigerator – I will take many of these to my daughter and grandchildren – they will love them!
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