This week I am picking turnip greens and cleaning them in my washer--boy has this tip made putting up (freezing)greens go MUCH faster. You fill the washer with greens and use cold water. I let them wash for one minute then spin. It is hard to get the pieces out so you need to wash some rags in the next cycle. But well worth it! I am putting up three times the amount I used to in the same time!

I like these kinds of tips and like to see them repeated because new people come on board. Please tell your tips--if they are different from this one, put them in another thread.

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), October 01, 2001

Answers

Ann, I wash my swiss chard and spinach in the washing machine, too. However, since I am short, and my washing machine drum is deep, getting the bits out of the bottom was hard for me. So I got a couple of the "lingerie" bags for "fine washables" and pick my greens right into the bags. I then run them through on the gentle cycle. It works great, and then I just empty the bags into the pot. I agree, it sure beats wahing them by hand when doing lots of them to freeze. Kathie

-- Kathie in Western Washington (twinrosefarm@centurytel.net), October 01, 2001.

Wow I've never heard of this washing machine method for greens. I'll have to keep this in mind. Thanks people

-- r.h. in okla. (rhays@sstelco.com), October 01, 2001.

A few years ago someone gave me a 25 lb. bag of spinach. That is a lot of spinach! But never one to let good food go to waste, I threw it in the washing machine, and then bagged and froze it. My husband thought I was nuts, until a week later an article came out in Yankee magazine. The article was about a woman who ran a Greek restaurant and needed so much spinach that she washed it in a washing machine. Suddenly I was inovative and resourceful. Guess it all depends on the prespective.

-- Julie (rjbk@together.net), October 01, 2001.