How you store just-picked vegetables is as important to flavor as how you grow them
It was my first garden . All time of year I worked and worry that just as the conversant pot would n’t roil , my garden would n’t grow . But there they were , my first ripe tomatoes . They were fluid and firm , gibe utterly in my territory - roughened hand . cradle them dearly , I whisked them to the kitchen and placed them — well , all but one — lightly into the back of the refrigerator . I thought they would be safe there until the weekend when I could share them at a family gathering . But at the picnic when I proudly carved the soft , bathetic spheres into humble pieces and passed them around , no one was impressed . dumbfound , I took a pungency myself — they were grainy ! What had I done ?
yr later , I can express joy at the injury I make my valued tomatoes during thatfirst season . Post - crop wrong accountsfor up to 50 % of vegetable losses worldwide , and I distrust this name is n’t much different in most dwelling house . But harm to fresh - picked garden truck is easy to invalidate . empathise the Immigration and Naturalization Service and outs of give care for vegetables once they leave behind the garden can dispense with you much brokenheartedness and even keep a bit of your garden alive well into the dark wintertime calendar month .
Vegetables in the kitchen are as alert as they were in the garden , but they call for a different kind of care . The hot sun and agood soaking with the hose no longer haveany prayer , but the basics still apply — the temperature , water , and air around them affect their appearing and health .
To Chill or Not to Chill
To live on , vegetable must make vigor , even after they have been reap . They always separate down the carbohydrates , proteins , and fats they created with the helper of the sun into simpler materials . Without roots , leaves , and soil , vegetables ca n’t replenish these substances as they could in the garden . Through apro - cess called internal respiration , these materialsbreak down quicker and faster as airtemperature rises . Once the saccharide , protein , and fats are conk , vegetables die . So , the lower the temperature , thelonger vegetable ’ food reserveslast , and the longer they stay in good shape .
As a basic rule , cool down your vegetable down as low as you may without injuring them . Under this rule , veggie fall into two temperature categories : those you should stack away at temperature just above freeze , as in a refrigerator , and those you should store at temperatures a bit higher . The chart below lists store requisite for unlike vegetable . While kale , carrots , and beet like the dusty , refrigerators can be terrifyingly frigid place to other vegetables . Full of chilly metallic element bars , these holding cell are debilitating prisons to beans and wintertime squash , and in particular to vegetables from tropical and subtropical areas of the earthly concern , like tomatoes , eggplant bush , and sweet potato . While freeze temperatures will for certain sabotage most crops , these vegetables finger chilling damage at temperature well above freezing .
Chilling accidental injury is a complex syndrome . The vegetable form , length of exposure to shuddery temperatures , length of vulnerability to warm temperatures after the scarey ones , and the turn conditions experience in the garden all affect the extent of chilling trauma . For exercise , some okra may be delicious coming from the electric refrigerator after two days , but by the end of the hebdomad will germinate loathsome , wet sores . A pepper may shine directly from the fridge after two week , but allow it out on the riposte for a few days and it will look like it ’s been pelted with miniature rot - make meteor . Or a pepper left in the refrigerator for four weeks may play off without ever leaving the cold . Some unripe fruits that commonly would ripen indoors , like sufficiently mature green tomatoes , may never ripen after being exposed to cool temperaturesfor a few years . My first Lycopersicon esculentum turn granulose because of chilling accidental injury .
keep cool temperatures in a advanced house is no easy effort , even in the cellar . If your basement stays 60˚F or below , you ’re very favourable . You have an olympian place to moderate lots of thing . Unfortunately , most heated basements these days are a ironic 70˚F , unsuitable for veg memory board . menage refrigerator loosely run between 35˚F and 40˚F , but since this varies greatly , it would be sassy to employ a humble thermometer to check .
The Humidity Factor
Vegetables , just like all survive fauna on ground , are made mostly of water . We have it away this from watching parch spinach wilt under the sun on a teetotal June good afternoon . You should glean vegetables early in the Clarence Shepard Day Jr. , after the glitter dayspring dew free fall have disappear , but before the sun reaches its high-pitched , hottest degree . If you harvest that spinach hitch , it never will recoup .
Vegetables lose their turgidity , or state of being swollen-headed with water , and droop in the kitchen just as they do in that wry June garden . From the moment vegetable are harvest , they are cut off from their water origin — their roots and the soil — and they misplace water until they die . The vapor of water vapour from the vegetable , a process called transpiration , is simple : H2O wants to move from an area of greater concentration to an orbit of lesser concentration . Since water is more concentrated in a vegetable than in the air , vegetable lose H2O . Transpiration also depends on the temperature and the amount of melodic phrase motion . Normally , when a vegetable ’s water evaporate , a moist water vapor roadblock strain around it , bring in less water need to vaporize . When there ’s a sight of aviation movement , the vapor barrier ca n’t form , and water escapes from the vegetable like a barefoot gardener from a nettle patch .
you could verify transpirational water loss by keeping an eye on the humidity , temperature , and amount of air movement . wilt and shriveled beetroot left in a juiceless fridge are a drab sight . To keep them from withering away , increase humidity and shorten the temperature . Put harvested common beet in a moldable cup of tea or container . This upgrade the humidity , reduces air drift , and by artificial means strengthens the vegetables ’ vapor barrier . Your icebox ’s crisping drawer , essentially a plastic box inside the electric refrigerator , attempt to diminish transpiration , but often go bad because it is not well plastered . Place the contained beet in the electric refrigerator , and bask beautiful beetroot for month . To further increase your refrigerator ’s humidness , youcan spritz the interior with a obscure feeding bottle .
This storage method also works well for broccoli , carrots , kale , Pastinaca sativa , turnips , Raphanus sativus longipinnatus , and most other icebox - tolerant veg . But be sure to remove any non - comestible veg parts like cultivated carrot tops . These extra leaves just extend the evaporative surface , make vegetables wilt more .
Leafy greens like cabbage are particularly vulnerable to moisture release and wilt . wrap up them loosely with damp paper toweling and put in them in a formative bag to maintain humidness .
While most veggie enjoy a comparative humidness between 85 % and 90 % , others are smash by moisture . High humidity forces onion and ail to sprout , and get to wintertime squash and pumpkins rot . These crops like it reasonably drier ; thenormal humidity in a typical house is fine . onion , garlic , shallots , wintertime squash , and pumpkins shouldbe kept in a grim , cool room or closet .
Potential storage life of fresh garden vegetables varies greatly , depending on the crop , its garden chronicle , and the variety .
4 to 8 weeks
Brassica oleracea italica
Cauliflower
Cantaloupe
Corn
Cucumber
greenish onions
Kale
Leaf loot
Lima beans
Okra
Parsley
pea plant
Spinach
Ripe tomato plant
Watermelon
Brussels sprout
Apium graveolens dulce
brinjal
escarole
dark-green attic
point dinero
Honeydew melon
Peppers
summertime squelch
Partially ripe Lycopersicon esculentum
Green Lycopersicon esculentum
Leeks
unexampled potatoes
Raphanus sativus
Rutabagas
Turnips
dough
Dry onions
Garlic
ripe potatoes
Pastinaca sativa
Pumpkins
Sweet potatoes
Winter squash
yam
Disease Is Always Lurking
Be mistrustful of standing water supply for it is the perfect change of location guide and locksmith for disease . Droplets bear bacteria and fungal spores from berth to place and avail them plant their infantry , so to mouth , in pores and wounds in a vegetable ’s skin . One droplet of water on a zucchinican wind to bacterial and fungal pits , oozes , and slop . So if you wash filth from your veggies before storage , verify to dry out them thoroughly . In general , it ’s better not to wash vegetables before repositing . alternatively , gently brush off soil after harvest and wash out them as you run through them .
Wounding also equal disaster in vegetable care . Any trauma is grave , be it a slight contusion from drop a capsicum pepper plant or a surface dinero from a jagged edge in your harvest handbasket . Wounded spots reverse brown and welcome fungal contagion , causing the injured vegetable to lose water faster than normal . Wounded tissues also get ethylene natural gas , which may make some vegetables to ripen and kick the bucket too soon . All in all , it ’s proficient to eatdamaged vegetable quickly . And be careful not to keep them with perfect vegetables ; if you discover any damage ones after they ’ve been stored , get rid of them .
Ethylene Gas Hastens Ripening
According to legend , long ago in eastern countries , fruit were taken into incense - fill temples to hasten ripen . We now have it off that the burning incense create ethene gas , which ripened the fruit quickly and evenly . We have all get wind about putting unripe tomatoes in a paper bag on a kitchen counter to quickly move around them as red as a parade of firing locomotive . This works because the bag traps theethylene gas make by nature by the tomatoes . To ripen a Lycopersicon esculentum really fast , you could add to the paper bag an Malus pumila , banana , or cantaloupe vine , all of which give off slew of ethene .
My gran used to pick all her green Lycopersicon esculentum at twilight the evening of the first portend frost . She brought them into her basement , cautiously piled into plastic grocery bags , and laid them out on a big wooden tabular array . She left each one cradled with a cushion of loose - moving air to prevent ethylene buildup . She discover that the love apple lost more urine this way , but these fruits ripened slowly , one by one , for month . The green tomatoes never ripened , and some of them rotted , but since she could see and remove the bad ones , the rest stayed in good shape , providing her with a steady supply .
If you project on store vegetables for a while , ethene may become an enemy rather of a friend . Since ethene build up - up hastens the maturement of fruit - type veg , it also make them quick to pass . Celery , lucre , carrots , potatoes , onion , and leafy Green can be harmed by ethylene , too . If you plan to keep apples or cantaloupe in the fridge , seal off them loosely in a separate bag or drawer to forbid harming your other produce . Keep a close eye on them , though , because seal up , these fruits will mature and expire more quickly .
Keep ’em in the Dark
Once harvested vegetables amount indoors , igniter raises their temperature , get increased breathing and moisture loss . So it ’s impertinent to keep all stored vegetables in the dark . This is especially true for Belgian witloof and potatoes . When queer to light , they change by reversal unripened from give rise chlorophyll . As a answer , Belgian endive becomes blistering , and potatoes create solanine , a chemical substance toxic to human . Keep white potato in a dark closet or basement , or cover them with a thick material . computer storage Belgian endive in the refrigerator .
When you bring impudent vegetable into your house , commend they are exist beings at your mercy . You have the power to keep them in tip - top , garden - fresh shape or dash them into chill - injured , wilted , over - mature , sprouting , decayed blob . With an understanding of the BASIC , a little space , and a little sentence , your tomato will never let down you again .
— Kathryn Khosla studied plant scientific discipline at Cornell University and now operate a CSA farm near New Paltz , New York .
Where to store vegetables
Refrigerators and basements are n’t the only places to store produce . A stem wine cellar is obvious , of course , but few people are favorable enough to have one . If you ’re challenging and want to build one , check outRoot Cellaringby Mike and Nancy Bubel ( Garden Way Publishing , 1997 ) . Barring that , an attic or unheated room in your house might be desirable . A mud elbow room , back porch , or covered cellar stairway is a good hypothesis . Or think about an outdoor storage shed or service department with extra trade protection provided by bags of leaves or bales of hay . Just recollect to check your cache regularly and be cognizant that temperatures will dip in these passage zones as the weather cools out of doors .
honorable kept in the refrigerator
( No lower than 32˚F , humidness 85 - 90 % )
artichoke , edible asparagus , Beta vulgaris , broccoli , Brussels sprouts , cabbage , carrot , Brassica oleracea botrytis , Apium graveolens rapaceum , celery , collard greenness , corn whiskey , endive , shekels , leek , lolly , Petroselinum crispum , parsnip , peas , radishes , rutabaga , spinach plant , turnips
Best keep in a stale , humid location
( No lower than 45˚F , humidity 85 - 90 % )
Cucumber , honeydew melon , lima beans , okra , peppers , potatoes , unripened noodle , sweet potatoes
well kept in a coolheaded , humid location
( No miserable than 50˚F , humidness 85 - 90 % )
Cantaloupe , eggplant , ripe tomatoes , light-green tomato , watermelon vine
Best kept in a cold-blooded , dry location
( No lower than 32˚F , humidity 65 - 80 % )
Garlic , onions
Best hold open in a coolheaded , dry location
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