How can you tell if a cucumber is missing?
The presence of wrinkles or slight pressing in the area of the stalk. This means that the fruit has begun to deteriorate. If there are cracks on the surface of the cucumber, which become a place for the accumulation of harmful microorganisms. It is better not to buy wet fruits, as they will spoil faster.
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Storing cucumbers
Cucumbers intended for storage are not washed.
The best storage conditions are achieved at a temperature of +8 degrees and a relative humidity of 95%. Under these conditions, cucumbers can be stored for 10 to 14 days, and some varieties for up to 3 weeks.
Cucumbers intended for storage are not washed
Cucumbers are susceptible to shriveling. Cucumbers are stored in boxes lined with film. You can put cucumbers in plastic bags. The packages are not closed during storage. To sell fresh on the market, cucumbers will require high humidity in storage. Wrapping the fruit in plastic wrap will help delay moisture loss.
Storing cucumbers for more than two days at temperatures below +8 degrees will lead to spoilage.
Symptoms of excessive cooling become visible through watery spotting, pitting, and disruption of tissue structure. At temperatures above +10 degrees, the green color of the cucumber peel turns yellow. Cucumbers ripen very quickly and lose their taste.
Storing with tomatoes will cause the cucumbers to yellow and ripen more quickly.
Apples, tomatoes and some other crops emit ethylene gas during storage. Ethylene promotes accelerated ripening of fruits. If you put an apple and unripe bananas in a plastic bag, the latter will ripen quickly. The same will happen with cucumbers. If cucumbers are stored in optimal conditions, but are in the same room with crops that produce ethylene, then after 10 days of joint storage, the color of the cucumbers will quickly change. Cucumbers will begin to yellow and ripen more quickly.
Excessive concentrations of ethylene can also cause rot in cucumbers.
An altered gas environment with low oxygen content will slow down the yellowing of cucumbers. Cucumbers can be stored at home in vacuum packaging. Currently, trade offers a sufficient range of household vacuum pumps and special plastic bags for storage. If such a device is not at hand, savvy housewives put fruits or vegetables in bags, insert a cocktail straw and grab the neck of the bag with a rope. Then air is sucked out through the tube, the tube is carefully removed and the bag is quickly tied.
Another interesting point. In production, some technologies provide for hydrocooling of cucumbers before pickling. To do this, cool the cucumbers with cold water at a temperature of +0.5 to +10 degrees for 10 - 40 minutes (depending on the selected temperature). After this, they are stored at a temperature of +4.5 ° C for 4 days and then salted. Perhaps someone would like to conduct an experiment to see if the cucumbers turn out extra crispy.
Cucumbers during the ripening period require harvesting after 1-2 days. However, many summer residents come to their plots only on weekends. There will be no time for storing cucumbers here. In a week they manage to outgrow, some of them ripen and become like zucchini. Do not rush to compost such fruits. Try to prepare an original preparation. Pass overgrown cucumbers (they should not be sour) through a juicer to extract juice. Cut young, high-quality cucumbers into cucumber juice, add dill and parsley. Pour the mixture into portioned containers and freeze. This will be the preparation for cucumber okroshka.
To prepare cucumber okroshka on a cold winter day, defrost the preparation. Chop boiled potatoes, boiled eggs and, if desired, boiled meat or sausages into aromatic cucumber juice. Salt the dish to taste, season with sour cream or mayonnaise. Bon appetit!
Cucumber okroshka on a cold winter day
A few general principles
- Store vegetables separately from fruits. The fact is that apples, pears, bananas and apricots emit ethylene, a gas that accelerates the ripening and spoilage of nearby fruits and vegetables.
- Store tomatoes, potatoes and peppers separately (including separately from each other). They also emit ethylene and greatly affect the taste and quality of other vegetables. So, for example, next to a tomato, carrots and beets will become bitter, and potatoes next to peppers will quickly sprout.
- Always cut off the tops of root vegetables. Before putting carrots, beets, radishes, turnips and other root vegetables in the refrigerator, you need to trim their tops, leaving only a small tail 2.5 cm long to protect the vegetable from drying out. Also, before storing root vegetables, they need to be cleaned of any remaining soil with a soft brush.
- Wash vegetables and herbs (except greens) only before eating, and not in advance. It is very convenient to wash all the products at once before putting them in the refrigerator, but it turns out that this speeds up the spoilage of plant products. But greens can be washed before storing by soaking them in a sink of water.
- Store vegetables in loose and perforated bags and containers. Make sure your vegetable storage bag has holes to allow good air flow. In this case, the fruits should lie loosely in the package, because the closer they are located to each other, the faster they begin to rot.
See also the material: How to store fruit at home - general principles, instructions and photo ideas.
Storing tomatoes
They begin to harvest tomatoes every 4-5 days, then, when mass fruiting begins, after 3-4 days. If tomatoes are not harvested regularly, the yield will decrease sharply. At the last harvest, all fruits are collected, regardless of ripeness. If harvesting is delayed, the tomatoes will soon begin to rot.
The last fruit harvesting is carried out until the air temperature drops below +10 degrees.
To store tomatoes, use baskets, boxes or low boxes. The fruits are layered with dry material: sawdust, toff, moss, straw. The fruits should be positioned so that they do not touch each other. A very good way is to wrap each fruit in individual paper. In addition, tomatoes can be stored in the same way as cucumbers, in vacuum packaging.
Tomatoes must be removed with the stalk
When harvesting tomatoes, you should remember that the fruits that you plan to store must be collected with the stalk. This is especially true for unripe tomatoes. When a firmly held stalk is torn off, the flesh of the fruit is damaged, which will lead to fruit disease. There are varieties in which the stalk is immediately separated from the fruit when harvested. These tomatoes have suberized tissue under the stalk and this is not critical for them.
When storing tomatoes, you need to know that they are very sensitive to temperatures. Maintaining the recommended temperature is critical. Please note that the storage temperature of tomatoes differs for fruits of different degrees of ripening. In any case, the optimal relative humidity is 90-95%.
Storage temperature differs for tomatoes of different degrees of ripening
Storing green tomatoes
Green ones are unripe tomatoes. Some of them may already have a normal size for the variety, others may not have time to fully develop and remain smaller. Green tomatoes can be exposed to low temperatures while still in the field. Tomatoes that withstand temperatures below +10 degrees for a week are likely to rot even at optimal storage temperatures. Some losses due to hypothermia are possible at temperatures below +16 degrees in the last week before harvest.
Cooling periods in the field, during transportation and storage have an accumulating effect. That is, tomatoes chilled only briefly in the field may become susceptible to spoilage during transport or storage. Hypothermia, in addition to the development of diseases, worsens the taste of tomatoes.
Optimal temperatures for ripening green tomatoes are from +18 to +21 degrees. At temperatures above +27 degrees, tomatoes usually do not ripen. Temperatures from +14 to +16 degrees are optimal for slowing down ripening without increasing the risk of product spoilage. At these temperatures, the green fruit will ripen enough to be packaged for storage for 7 to 14 days.
Green tomatoes cannot be successfully stored at temperatures that prevent ripening.
Fruits kept for 2 weeks or more at +13 degrees may rot green without turning red. Fruits kept at temperatures below +10 degrees are quickly affected by diseases before they have time to ripen.
Storing milky ripe tomatoes
Dairy is the degree of ripeness of tomatoes at which the fruits have reached normal size and are light green in color with a milky tint. Their skin is hard and the flesh is light green. Tomatoes of this ripeness ripen at temperatures from +18 to +27 degrees for 10-15 days.
It is recommended to store milk-ripe tomatoes at a temperature of +10 to +13 degrees. It is not recommended to store them for more than a week; a longer period will deteriorate the presentation of the fruit. Placing these tomatoes at lower temperatures will lead to problems with subsequent ripening.
After establishing a temperature of +4 - +5 degrees, the fruits will not ripen under any favorable conditions.
Storing brown ripe tomatoes
Brown is the ripeness of tomatoes in which the skin of the fruit is dense, glossy with brown spots and an initial pink color from the top. Inside, the fruit is no longer green, but whitish-brown with pink spots. Such fruits ripen at a temperature of +18 - +30 degrees within a week. If it is necessary to store brown ripe tomatoes, the storage temperature should be +4 - +6 degrees.
Storing pink tomatoes
Pink tomatoes are still unripe tomatoes. They ripen 3-6 days after harvesting. If it is necessary to store pink fruits, they will need a temperature of +1 - +2 degrees.
Storing ripe tomatoes
Ripe tomatoes can withstand low temperatures. If there is a need for long-term storage of strong, ripe tomatoes, they can be kept at low positive temperatures from +0.5 to +1.5 degrees from 3 weeks to one and a half months, depending on the variety. However, by the end of storage, the fruits of some varieties are likely to lose their taste, keeping quality and strength.
About ways to store tomatoes with Olga Platonova
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