Dave and Howard Anderson investigate a special tool that lets you harvest leaf lettuce and other greens quickly and easily.

Video Transcription

David Epstein: Hi! I’m David Epstein. Welcome to Growing Wisdom. And we are here today with Howard Anderson of Johnny’s Selected Seeds and that will be in Maine. And Howard, you’re going to help me harvest some of these lettuce here we’ve got in the trial garden. Howard Anderson: We are. We’re going to use a greens harvester. It’s a very nice simple little tool, just move it back and forth and it cuts all the greens and put it right in your bucket. David Epstein: So, this saves bending over, having to pick each leaf. Howard Anderson: Right, so this harvests absolutely everything on one quick easy motion. David Epstein: And is it good for head lettuce and leaf lettuce? Howard Anderson: It is better for leaf lettuce. The heads will just kind of roll around and the leaf will pile up on the basket. David Epstein: Like if you had mesclun mix or something like that. Howard Anderson: That’s right, salad greens, any kind of the Asian greens you do is baby-leaf, yes. David Epstein: Terrific, terrific! All right, well show me how it works. Okay so tell me what is this? This is pretty sharp. Howard Anderson: It is pretty sharp. This is a butcher’s band saw, the blade that has been cut to fit on this tool. David Epstein: After you’ve cut a lot, I imagine you’ve got to sharpen it. Howard Anderson: We do. And we just have a diamond honed file to use to sharpen this blade to keep it sharp. So, it makes it like a nice hacksaw. David Epstein: Right. This is pretty cool. And you know, I’ve always told folks who watch Growing Wisdom, you know one of the things you want to do is to keep things clean and sharp. You don’t want to put this away dirty and always clean it off. This is a little bigger than the one we’ve seen already. These come in a couple of sizes? Howard Anderson: It comes with three different sizes, depending on how wide your beds are. David Epstein: What’s neat is that one person can do these two rows like that so quickly. It makes a nice clean cut. So Howard, thanks for showing us this and this is on your website, right? Howard Anderson: It is in our website, johnnyseeds.com. David Epstein: Great, comeback every week for all our tips, hints and helps, and thank you Howard, here at growingwisdom.com.