Harvesting Lettuce - Keeping it firm?? help!

[DouglasPeeps]

Sorry if this seems like a dumb question..... I have been gardening for years and have just dealt with this, but thought I would ask if anyone on here had a solution for me. When I harvest my lettuce then use it or store it in the fridge I find that it wilts very quickly. Is there something I should be doing to avoid this? Maybe doing a quick "dunk" in cold water??
Thanks!

 

[Rosalind]

1. Just after picking, rinse w/ cold cold water

2. Shake so that it's not quite completely dry. Lightly damp is OK, soggy is no good, completely dry will not have enough humidity. Or dry completely and put a damp paper towel in with them.

3. Put loosely, not tightly, into a Ziploc BUT (very important!) only close the ziploc 1/2 way. Leave it open some, not all the way open.

4. Refrigerate. Use within, oh, 5 days or so. It doesn't keep much longer than that no matter what.

 

[lesa]

I am not much of a gadget person, but one that I really use a lot, is my salad spinner. With all the rain we have had, it is hard to get the lettuce washed of the little mud spots. The spinner does a great job- and gets it quite dry. I think it is really best, to harvest just before eating. I don't try to keep mine...

 

[inchworm]

This year I did as Rosalind did and it worked very well. Some of the lettuce was crisper than when I picked it.

Inchworm

 

[patandchickens]

Unless it's head lettuce, the best thing to do IMHO is only harvest as much as you'll use that day -- do not cut the whole plant, just take the lowermost leaves from several plants. The plant will tolerate this pretty well (as long as your harvest is spread over enough differnet plants) and keep growing and producing, so you get a larger overall harvest from your lettuces.

Picked leaves can be washed, salad-spinner-ed, wrapped in a barely damp papertowel or teatowel and stored in a nearly-closed plastic bag or lidded container for up to 2+ days with no major loss of quality.

If you have head lettuces that just *have* to be harvested whole, what's always worked well for my mother (I don't grow heading lettuces myself) is to cut the stem a bit on the low rather than high side, strip any unsalvageable leaves, wash the whole thing *thoroughly* in cool water and let drip upsidedown on the dish drainer for 30-60 min. to dry; then store in one of those lettuce keeper containers (you know, sort of deep-bowl-shaped with a thingie in the bottom to keep the lettuce up off any dripped-down water that pools there?) with the lid nearly completely snapped shut. You still are unlikely to get it past a week that way. So, don't harvest more than you will eat! It really truly keeps best in the *ground*.

When lettuce starts to bolt and get bitter, there is really no way to seriously delay bolting nor seriously store it for a long time at home, you just have to start eating lots of salads and putting it in your soups, noodles, etc etc, and give away the extras while they're still good

JME, good luck, have fun,

Pat