Best way to NOT waste water washing lettuce/salad greens?

[applestar]

OK, I'm tired of wasting so much water washing lettuce/greens, not to mention radishes.

In my experience, they need a prelim rinsing of dirt, which usually do in the garden but that water just goes in the ground. Then they need 3 cycles in the big salad spinner -- soak, stir, dump water, repeat twice, then spin. Usually done in the kitchen sink = all that water down the drain.

I need a new procedure/system. Does anyone have one already? Can we have a brainstorming session?

[rootsy]

why not recycle the water... get yourself a cartridge filter and small pump (or if you are patient, use gravity) and some plastic tubing (unless you prefer copper and soldering)... You can get quite a few varieties of filters in quite a few compositions and porosity sizes... They aren't all that expensive either...

Most simplistic setup will be a funnel, attach clear plastic hose to it... take your filter assy, 2 pipe thread plastic barbed fittings (Barbs fit the hose - threads fit the filter base). one inlet... other outlet back into the storage container or your salad spinner, etc... elevate the funnel above the filter assy by a foot or two.. pour in the dirty water... that filter should flow through without much issue...

If you want to siphon from the sink then you'll need a small pump...

[!potatoes!]

or simple-style, just do the salad spinner over a bucket, and take that grey out by hand. we've taken to collecting all the clean (or cleanish) water in the house - bucket under the tap while it's running to heat it up for dishes, from washing hands if it's just soil anyway, etc...eventually want to get a little constructed wetlands going to clean up the bit dirtier grey water...but we're gonna have to wait until we're not renting, something tells me.

[Charlie MV]

we rolled out some of those porous ground covers and slit them for seed plants and cut holes for the plants we bought. It kept the dirt off the plants pretty well. Much less washing involved.

[Gnome]

applestar,

Somewhere I once saw a setup where an old stainless kitchen sink was set up outside. Another choice might be a stand-alone utility sink, the plastic kind. A five gallon bucket could capture the water. Maybe even a two staged affair that would allow the soil to settle.

Such a setup would allow you to wash your produce outside and simply use the water where it is required. This also keeps the soil out of your sewer and in the garden. Such a setup could be a part of a potting bench and serve multiple purposes.

Try Google Images: 'garden sink'

Norm

[The Helpful Gardener]

Knock out the worst of it in a dish pan of water right in the garden. Water plants with rinsate. One spin in the house and eat. Anything that makes it through you were destined to eat...

Living soils produce living foods. We are actually designed to consume and even produce microbiology as part of our digestion process; take [url=https://www.living-foods.com/articles/b12issue.html]vitamin B12[/url]. This is derived from micriobial process rather than any particular food; people commenting on vegetarians not looking as "healthy" as meat eaters are usually noting a B12 deficiency (harder to get in a veggie diet, but not impossible, as long as you are ingesting some microbiology). It is neither a meat or vegetable thing but a microbiology thing...

Healthy soils produce healthier microbiology produce healthier food. Better practices in the yard lead to better living on the planet. And better water use leads to more water we can use to garden and live. Nice thought, AS.

HG

[applestar]

Thanks for the ideas -- I guess it WAS pretty obvious that the first step would be to take the whole procedure out in the garden. That way, the water doesn't get wasted down the drain. Whether I use the perfectly good "dirty" water intelligently or not, at least it goes right back to earth.

I like the garden sink idea -- I'll have to give it some thought. One of the searches turned up a home made filter made of a large clay pot filled with sand, gravel, and small stones that fits on the rim of a 5-gal bucket. Too bad we got rid of that old stainless steel kitchen sink a few years ago... but someone's created a birdbath out of a pedestal sink... or maybe a glazed ceramic pot (with a drain hole)? This will be a fun project!

But for now, I guess I WILL just use what's available and wash outside.

As for " Anything that makes it through you were destined to eat... " Try telling that to my 7 yr old! If she spots a speck on her glass, she declares it "dirty" I do agree about the microbiology thing.... There's too much emphasis on the hype to "kill/eliminate 99.9% of germs" I think we're brainwashed into thinking that doing this is somehow healthier.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Right, AS.

Think about yogurt for a second. Why is it yogurt? Becuase it has been cultured. With pixie dust? Why, no, with bacteria. Some that have been found to boost the human immune system, some that have been found to aid human digestion, all from this Lactobaccilus. When they say L. acidophyllus or L. casei immunitas, the L. is Lactobaccilus. It is a commonly found genera in soils, actually found on all continents but Antartica. It has antifungal properties that we as gardeners can sustitute for many fungicidal chemicals that are injurious to aquatic systems; milk mixed one to ten in water and sprayed on foliage is not only preventitive of fungus but on lower order stuff like powdery mildew, curative.

And luckily it has been found to be a responsible agent for cleaning up trace level antibacterial residues in natural systems. Here's a bacteria we can't live without. And think about this. Dr. Kellogg, the guy who founded the cereal company, was an M.D. and a health nut, who insisted on yogurt daily at breakfast. As an example he kept a steak in a bucket of yougurt for ten years and it still looked fresh! (...but maybe I'll have the fish...)

HG