Annalisa Hultberg, Extension Educator, food safety It is important to sanitize food contact surfaces on the farm to reduce the levels of disease - causing organisms, such as E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria that can be on surfaces and spread to our fresh vegetables. It can also help increase produce shelf life and reduce the spread of plant diseases around the farm. Here are some tips on sanitizing efficiently and effectively to keep your customers and product healthy. Why sanitize? Sanitizing reduces the contamination level on surfaces by killing microorganisms that cause disease. Sanitizers are most effective when surfaces are clean and free of soil and residues. So, make sure to clean surfaces before you sanitize! Here are the steps: remove visible soil, scrub with detergent and water, rinse again, and then sanitize the surface. The surface will not be totally free of microorganisms, but they will be greatly reduced. If done correctly, this process results in safer produc
Author: Natalie Hoidal, UMN Extension educator, local foods and vegetable crops This week our team visited farms along the North Shore, as well as in the Twin Cities and the Brainerd area. Crops are at totally different stages across the state; tomatoes are still less than 1 foot tall along the North Shore, while they are already setting fruit elsewhere. Growers in Northern Minnesota reported being anywhere from 3-6 weeks behind their typical schedules due to cool temperatures and excessive rainfall, while growers in the south are experiencing excessive heat and very little rain. Crop updates Tomatoes: While a couple of farms have ripe tomatoes, most people are at the stage of waiting patiently for their green tomatoes (in tunnels) to ripen. Peppers: Peppers are generally doing well, despite some of the odd looking plants I talked about last week. There are a couple of issues starting to emerge: we've seen some sunburn on exposed peppers, particularly in tunnels. As the canopy de