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| After I pick my pepper plants, they go wilted within days. What do I need to do to store them correctly so they'll stay fresh longer? |
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| I assume you are picking the peppers off the plant, not picking the plants themselves. Peppers are not a long storage item even under ideal conditions. They must be refrigerated immediately after picking. Putting them in a ziplock bag with a damp paper towel included into the vegetable bin of the fridge will keep them fresh for several days. Longer than that you have to can, pickle, dehydrate, or freeze them for longer storage. Which method you use all depends on how to plan to use them. So how do you use most of your peppers? Dave |
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- Posted by myfamilysfarm 5b (My Page) on Mon, Jul 15, 13 at 15:03
| keeping them cool, but not cold, will help keep them longer. Are you picking them at a mature size, if you pick them too small, they will wrinkle up faster than mature size. Tomatoes, peppers and eggplant all are of the same family and like temps (off the vine) of between 55-70 degrees. tomatoes will last longer than the other 2, and peppers are the one with the lesser amount of storage time. Peppers will stay on the vine longer than after picking, so there really isn't a good reason to pick before you need them, unless some really bad weather is coming in. |
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| I usually only use the peppers to make a lot of salsa. But my tomatoes are slower this year so I've had to wait for them. I will try the idea in the fridge. I'm a novice gardener and it's mostly trial by error, so far. And no, I'm not picking the whole plant. I'm sure there are a couple that I may have picked too soon, though, because I thought if I picked them, then maybe it would help more grow. But I'm getting plenty, so I will try to leave them on the plant longer while waiting for my tomatoes. |
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| If you are using them for salsa (or any recipe that calls for cooking them) then just freeze them until ready to make it. They freeze great in strips or chopped. If you know how much you need for each batch of salsa you can freeze them pre-measured and chopped in ziplocks and then they are ready to go when you make it. Dave |
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| Thank you. I never really thought of pre-measuring before freezing. That's a very helpful idea. I thought that if I freezed them that they might be soggy when I thawed them out. But I guess if they are going straight into the salsa, it shouldn't matter anyway because I tend to chop in tiny pieces. Thank you again for your help. It's very stressful to spend all the time growing and then losing things because I don't know what to do with it. |
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