Harvesting and Storing Peppers

Dry hot peppers in baskets in a warm, sunny location until the skins are pliable but dry.

By Charlie Nardozzie

The end of summer signals a time when the warm-season crops, such as sweet and hot peppers, are pouring in from the garden. Whether you're growing bell peppers, Italian frying peppers, or tiny hot peppers, now is the time to stay on top of the harvest and store some of these fruits for winter use.

The sweet peppers come in many colors and most end up maturing to red. While picking them at their colorful orange, yellow, lilac, chocolate, or white stages makes for interesting and tasty salads and dinners, the best flavor and nutrition is found in the fully mature sweet pepper. I like to let some of the peppers on my plants mature to the red stage. The flavor is sweeter and more intense. When you let peppers mature to the final red stage, the pepper plant is usually signaled to stop making more fruits. That's not a problem this time of year because peppers are generally slowing down on fruit production anyway. Your peppers will need two to three additional weeks on the vine at temperatures between 65 and 75 degrees F to turn red.

Hot peppers turn red more quickly and are great for processing; I like to dry them. Hot peppers dry well indoors or outdoors, depending on where you live. Harvest peppers at the mature red stage and select those that don't have insect or disease damage or soft skins. You can lay out small-fruited hot peppers in baskets to dry outdoors in a sunny, well-ventilated location if you live in a hot, dry climate. You can also string peppers together and hang them to dry indoors in a well-ventilated attic, garage, or barn. If you're drying larger-fruited hot peppers or live where the weather is cool and humid, try using an oven or dehydrator to dry your peppers. Dried peppers should have good color, be flexible but a little brittle, and have a tough skin. They make great decorations and additions to winter soups and stews.