Harvesting Homegrown Peppers

Peppers of all kinds are popular in home vegetable gardens. When do you harvest your sweet bell peppers, yellow peppers, or hot jalapeno peppers and how can they be stored? Here are a few tips on harvesting homegrown peppers and how to keep them fresh in both the short and long-term.

Harvesting homegrown peppers: When to pick

Your peppers will be ready for picking in approximately 60-90 days, depending on the type of pepper. Green bell peppers are ripe when the skin turns dark green and has a bit of a shine to it. If you wait to harvest, the green skin will turn red, but the pepper is still fine to eat. Once the peppers feel soft and mushy, it is too late to pick them. Hot peppers are ready to harvest when they are firm to the touch and have turned their proper color, whether it is green, red, or yellow.

Harvesting homegrown peppers: How to cut

To harvest your crop of homegrown peppers, use a pair of garden shears to snip the stems. Always protect yourself by wearing gloves when harvesting hot peppers. Do not rub your eyes, nose or mouth after handling hot peppers. Rinse the oils off of your skin with rubbing alcohol or whole milk to minimize the sting.

Harvesting homegrown peppers: Storing your peppers

After harvesting your garden's peppers, keep them in the crisper drawer in the refrigerator. It is best to use them in the first five days after picking so they do not become wilted and soft. If you wish to store your peppers for a longer period of time, you can either powder, pickle, or freeze them. To powder your hot peppers to use for cooking, first air dry the harvested peppers. Then hang them up to dry by stringing them up by the stems. The ideal location for drying hot peppers is in a cool, dark area. After the peppers are dry, you can grind them into dust and store the pepper dust in spice jars. Pickling works well as a method of preserving both hot and sweet peppers.

Harvesting homegrown peppers: Freezing your peppers

If you choose to freeze your bounty of harvested peppers, first wash them and remove the cores. Dice the peppers and spread the pieces out on a cookie sheet, being careful not to stack any of the pieces. Place the cookie sheet in your freezer and let it sit for an hour. Remove the pieces of pepper from the cookie sheet and store them in sealable freezer bags. Now you can conveniently pull out the peppers you need for a recipe and return the bag back to your freezer.