Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Post-Harvest Handling Decision Tool

Featured Vegetable Growers

Gardens of Eagan - Hog's Back Farm - Spring Hill Community Farm

The following descriptions of facilities and handling equipment at three featured farms--Gardens of Eagan, Hog's Back Farm, and Spring Hill Community Farm--can help you develop your own post-harvest handling system. Or, read about the systems in place at seven Upper Midwest farms in the PDF file below. 

Gardens of Eagan

Linda Halley, Farmingston, Minnesota

"Your kale is so much better and last so much longer than kale from the other local producers."

CSA boxMartin Diffley started Gardens of Eagan in 1973 on five rented acres in Eagan, Minnesota; he was joined in 1985 by Atina as his wife and farming partner. In the mid-1990’s, Martin and Atina moved the operation to Farmington as the old land-base succumbed to suburbanization. In the fall of 2007, the farming business was sold to Minneapolis’ Wedge Community Co-op.

With over twenty years of experience in organic vegetable production on both large and small farms in Wisconsin and California, Linda Halley took over management of the 65 acres of vegetable production in January of 2008.

Gardens of Eagan has narrowed its focus over the years to selling only to retail stores and wholesale distributors in the Twin Cities, which has a large number of cooperative natural foods stores. Martin and Atina also focused their attention on a limited number of crops: cucumbers, tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, kale, cauliflower, bell peppers, watermelons, and sweet corn. This has allowed Gardens of Eagan to develop very efficient systems for the production and handling of these crops.

Crops are delivered three days each week during the main part of the season, on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Most of the harvest, washing, packing take place on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with the refrigerated truck loaded on the same night for early-morning departure on delivery mornings. In the peak of the season, Linda may choose to harvest an additional day ahead, making decisions based on how well things keep and the optimal time of day for harvesting; occasionally this is necessary because there is simply too much crop to harvest in a single day.

Gardens of Eagan has a very large crew to conduct and manage the entire operation. On the harvest-wash-and-pack side of the operation, farm manager Linda Halley is assisted by a production and harvest manager as well as a packing coordinator. Additional harvest labor is provided by a crew of five to eight persons. Three more employees work seasonally full time to cover other farm operations. 

Facilities

A converted farm shop provides an ample space for washing and packing the produce at Gardens of Eagan. High ceilings and large sliding doors on the south and the west sides make the forty-foot by forty-foot main packing area a pleasant and accessible space, with plenty of room for storage of boxes and harvest totes, a brush washer, a sorting table, and a break and organizational area.

A shed roof over the north side of the building provides a ten-foot wide by forty-foot long space for crisping tanks and pallet jack access to the sixteen-foot by twenty-foot walk-in cooler. Bird netting in the rafters prevents nesting in this open-air portion of the facility. A twelve-foot overhead door separates the shed area from the main packing area, leaving ample access for the flow of product and personnel from one space to the other.

The packing facility has a handwashing sink with hot and cold water, and a portable toilet with a handwash station about one hundred feet away.

Crops are harvested into a fleet of old U-Haul trucks, which provide easy shade and a convenient height during the harvest. Full trucks back up to the packing facility, and dirty product is washed prior to storage. Often, crops are put directly from the truck into crisping tanks or the brush washer, with no additional stacking or handling. Because of the large scale of the harvest, the harvest crew will frequently bring in half of the harvest, back the truck up to the packing facility, and take another truck out to the field as the packing process begins.

Handling Equipment

Gardens of Eagan uses two 180-gallon Rubbermaid-style stock tanks supported by welded steel frames for crisping their greens. Because of their large size, the tanks have been retrofitted with PVC drains on the bottom of the tank, rather than the standard side plugs positioned an inch above the bottom of a stock tank. Although Linda would prefer a stainless steel milk tank for the ease of cleaning it would provide, the two long, skinny tanks work very well in their location.

An ice machine provides flaked ice that can be added to the top of boxes for additional cooling for the kale, and also a topping for the broccoli, which does not get washed. Two wheeled bins provide storage for ice beyond that available in the machine itself. Crops are topped with ice prior to being moved into storage.

The crisped kale, combined with the ice treatment, lasts much longer than kale that hasn’t gone through a dunk tank, but it does have the disadvantage that it needs to be packed into a larger-than-standard box than it would if the ice was allowed to provide the humidity to firm up the leaves. In a smaller box, the kale would get shredded if it wasn’t slightly wilted.

A twenty-inch wide brush washer provides fast cleaning of peppers and cucumbers. Gardens of Eagan doesn’t have an in-feed belt, so overturned totes position a full tote of produce for manual movement into the washer. Drying donuts remove surface moisture at the outlet, and a circular sorting table rotates at the end of the drying donuts to provide easy access for sorting and packing, as well as a place for product to build up without overflowing.

A washable-laminate covered table, approximately four by eight feet, provides ample space for sorting, grading, and packing tomatoes. A shelf under the table stores tomato boxes for quick and easy access.

The extensive use of concrete at Gardens of Eagan makes the use of pallet jacks almost mandatory for moving clean and packed product into the cooler, and from there onto the truck. The scale of the operation makes it practically mandatory.

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Hog's Back farm

David Van Eeckhout, Arkansaw, WI

"Efficiency is more important than diversity of items or markets."

CSA boxDavid Van Eeckhout started Hog’s Back Farm in 2003 at a farm five miles south of its current location. Prior to starting his own operation, David worked for several leaders in the local and organic foods movement, including Pennsylvania’s New Morning Farm; Stillwater, Minnesota’s, Red Cardinal Farm; and Delano, Minnesota’s, Riverbend Farm, where he spent three growing seasons. Despite David’s ample and broad experience, Hog’s Back Farm started small, and grew slowly, using his available capital to finance new investments in equipment and infrastructure.

In 2006, David moved the farm to its current location, where he has five acres in vegetable production at any given time, with about 20 acres in rotation. Almost all of Hog’s Back’s production goes to its Community Supported Agriculture subscription program, which currently sells 165 shares, almost all of them delivered to the Twin Cities. Hog’s Back’s focus on the CSA allows the farm to excel in that marketing and production model; occasional surpluses are sold through small natural food stores and restaurant connections.

In addition to David, Hog’s Back employees one full-time worker from March through November. During the growing season, David adds one additional full-time and two part-time workers.

Hog’s Back’s Thursday-only delivery schedule dictates the pace of the harvest and packing work on the farm, and requires some additional investment in systems and storage. On Tuesday, the crew harvest time-intensive crops, such as peas, beans, and tomatoes; on Wednesday, they harvest, wash, and pack everything else. On Thursday mornings, CSA shares are packed and rolled directly onto an un-refrigerated delivery truck.

Facilities

In time for the 2007 growing season, David remodeled the thirty-foot by sixty-foot lower level of a stanchion dairy barn to serve as a packing facility. The stanchions were removed, and the floor and gutters were filled with sand to provide a level surface, then covered with concrete. Circular floor drains provide ample drainage directly to the outdoors. The packing area has a metal ceiling and fiberglass reinforced plastic (FRP, commonly referred to as “dairy board”) wall coverings, all of which are washable. Currently, about forty feet of the barns sixty-foot length is used for washing and packing operations, while the rest of the area houses farm storage and a household summer kitchen.

Raising the floor has presented some challenges due to the newly-limited ceiling height, including the need to cut the tops off of the used walk-in coolers David installed. Hog’s Back currently runs two coolers: the cold and wet cooler, with a temperature of 34°F, measures eight by fourteen feet; the cool and wet cooler, maintained at 55°F, measures eight by ten feet. Crops that must be kept in a lower humidity environment are stored in the packing shed. The two coolers have doors that are too narrow to accept a standard 40-inch by 48-inch pallet; David has built some narrow pallets, but they are not convenient to use.

Large openings in the northwest and southeast corners, as well as the truck-loading door on the south wall, provide for generous airflow and cooling capacity. David has plans to install doors at these openings. Product enters the packing facility through a ground-height door at the northwest corner; most crops are washed before they go into storage in the walk-in coolers on the east wall. CSA boxes get packed assembly-line fashion on roller track, stacked onto home-made metal carts, and rolled out the south door directly onto Hog’s Back’s dock-height truck.

Hog’s Back washes all of its fall root crops before they go into storage. The silty-loam soil tends to stain the roots, and Hog’s Back only delivers up until Thanksgiving, so the minor damage sustained during the washing process is more than offset by the ability to avoid dirt-stains on the roots. This does, however, create a large point load for labor needed at harvest time, making the speed of operations at that time of year extremely important.

Because Hog’s Back does not use wax boxes for packing outbound product, a large amount of space in the packing area is devoted to storage of a variety of plastic totes used for harvest, storage, and delivery.

Restroom and hand wash facilities are located in the farmhouse, which is less than one hundred feet from the packing facility. In 2009, the hand wash will have moved into the packing facility; in the meantime, the crew uses nitrile surgical gloves for bagging and boxing products.

Handling Equipment

Hog’s Back Farm does not have an extensive or expensive array of post-harvest handling equipment. Rubbermaid stock tanks, hoses, a brush washer, and a variety of tables provide the necessary tools to get their work done.

The rinsing tanks at Hog’s Back included several 100-gallon tanks, and two 50-gallon tanks. The 100-gallon tanks are the most used, frequently placed on top of an overturned 50-gallon tank to achieve an ergonomic working height (the 50- and 100-gallon tanks have the same footprint). The crew uses these for washing bunched greens, removing the greens, giving them a shake, and packing them directly into plastic totes for storage.

During the harvest season, Hog’s Back bunches all root crops to avoid the additional labor of bagging them in the packing facility. Bunched roots are dumped into a tank to soak before washing. To wash the roots, workers use a shut-off valve at the end of a hose to provide a pressurized spray – similar to putting one’s thumb over the end of a hose – to wash the roots. “I tell people to count one, two, three, while rotating the bunch in their hand, then set it aside,” David notes. Washed bunches are tossed into a rinse tub, then removed, shaken, and packed.

Many farms drain washed greens on a screen table to remove excess water, but Hog’s Back doesn’t. David notes that bunched greens, and bunched roots with their tops still attached, get packed into CSA boxes and shipped fairly quickly, so the decay that can result from standing water doesn’t present the same issues it might for farms selling into a retail store or warehouse.

Hog’s Back’s packing area has several tall tables, with wooden legs and PolyMax bench panels on top. The PolyMax bench panels are rigid, black plastic designed for greenhouse benches. They have fairly wide ribs, and a one-inch grid for copious drainage. Hog’s Back also has several shorter stainless steel tables for weighing and staging product. Some of these stainless steel tables are on wheels to make them easy to move into an optimal position.

The major handling investment that Hog’s Back has made is a used brush washer. Theirs is a much pared down model, with no in-feed belt and no absorber to remove water; workers wheel a stainless steel table into position to put a tote of dirty product on, and feed crops such as beets, potatoes, and winter squash through the machine. At the outfeed end is a slanted table covered with a washable, green surface similar to that found in the produce section of many grocery stores. David is looking at getting a circular sorting table and drying donuts to improve efficiency and storability of crops.

Hog’s Back recently invested in a used stainless steel barrel washer for cleaning bulk roots. At the time of my visit, it had not yet arrived.

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Spring Hill Community Farm

Patty Wright and Mike Racette, Prairie Farm, Wisconsin

"'This is driving me nuts' is the big motivator for upgrading systems."

vegetablesFor Mike Racette and Patty Wright, 2009 will be the eighteenth year they’ve grown vegetables for their Community Supported Agriculture farm. With no experience in commercial vegetable production, and a farm distinctly lacking in flat ground, Mike and Patty have developed a farm that provides a comfortable living with a minimum of hired help.

With five acres in vegetable production, in addition to cover crops, Spring Hill produces 150 shares each week, which go to the Twin Cities in two separate deliveries. CSA members help with the harvest, washing, and packing operations, and manage all of the deliveries in their own vehicles. Each delivery day, four or five cars, with a total of up to ten CSA members, come to the farm to participate in the farmwork. A single coordinator manages the scheduling through web-based calendar, and Mike and Patty have enough familiarity with their members that they know what sort of work to plan for a given day; for example, if several families are coming with children, Mike and Patty would structure the harvest schedule so that potatoes would be harvested that day for the next several deliveries.

Patty notes that this membership involvement means that Spring Hill needs to provide meaningful work, because people are “smart enough to know when they are just engaged in busy work.” Spring Hill also needs to provide work that is appropriate to the available skill level: members don’t pick tomatoes because that crop requires too much judgment; they don’t pick beans or peas because unskilled workers are just too slow. Typical member tasks would include bunching herbs and greens, digging potatoes, and cleaning dried alliums, all undertakings that involve several people at a time, with a high rate of success.

A crew of five or six people working half time helps Mike and Patty with most of the harvest; work crews don’t come in on member days. Greens are harvested ahead of member days so that they have time to pre-chill in Spring Hill’s modest walk-in cooler. The efficiency loss that results from having members perform much of the work is offset by members taking deliveries to sites in the Twin Cities, saving not only labor expense but also the need to invest in a delivery vehicle.

On the other hand, Mike notes that new farmers should, “be careful what [they] start with, because it’s hard to change.” For Spring Hill Community Farm, scaling up would require new land and a change in their delivery and membership systems.

Facilities

The packing facility at Spring Hill Community Farm is the definition of simple, an east-facing ten-foot by forty-foot gravel area covered by a shed roof extending off of a machine shed. A supplemental building provides community space for members, as well as a kitchen and a bathroom. The packing area has antibacterial soap to supplement the handwashing facilities in the community building. The farm has a limited need for storage of boxes and totes because they pack shares twice each week, reducing the amount of product they have on hand at any given time. Shares are packed into canvas bags for delivery.

Packing of product happens concurrently with the harvest. A four-wheeler with a trailer moves the harvest to the packing shed, and crops are cleaned before going into to the eight-foot by six-foot walk-in cooler inside the machine shed. Because the pole-style space is open to the air, it’s easy to access with the trailer. Cleaned product is hand-carried to the walk-in cooler.

Handling Equipment

Because they rely on less-skilled labor, and because the twice-weekly harvest schedule means they manage less product at a time, Mike and Patty have kept their handling equipment to a minimum.

Four 50-gallon Rubbermaid stock tanks are supported on wooden sawhorses to bring them to an appropriate working height. The small tanks refill quickly, requiring less management than a single tank that took longer to fill; members and workers can easily continue washing in one tank while another fills. These tanks are used for bunched greens and peppers. Bunched greens are drained on a screen table before packing.

Spring Hill uses an electric pressure washer to clean their carrots, which are an important signature crop for the farm. The pressure washer has a variable pressure adjustment so at crops don’t get shredded. Carrots are topped in the field and put into totes for transport to the packing shed, where they are dumped into an empty stock tank and batch-washed with the pressure washer. Rutabagas, parsnips, and bulk turnips are handled in the same way.

Potatoes and topped beets are harvested directly into 25-pound mesh bags, then agitated in a tub of water and sorted on a grading table.

Bunched beets get dunked in a tank and scrubbed with a brush, while bunched turnips are stacked and washed with a pressure washer on a stand.

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