Why do cucumbers get soft

Whether you soak them in ice water , salted water or a lime- water solution, an overnight soak is an important step in many recipes to create quality pickles that you will love. Sliced cucumbers should be packed into a self-sealing container and stored in the fridge.

Even though this is the best way to store them, they'll only keep their taste and texture for one to two days. After that, they'll begin to lose their crispness.

Salting the Cucumbers The salt encourages the cucumber to leach out excess liquid, reducing the risk that you'll end up with a watery salad. To salt and drain your cucumbers : Slice the cucumbers and place them in a colander, tossing with 1 to 2 tablespoons of salt. Coat all the pieces evenly. Wrap the cucumber in plastic wrap. Keeping the cucumber wrapped minimizes the amount of moisture on the cucumber , which slows the process of decay. After wrapping, put the cucumber in the refrigerator.

This should keep it cold enough to stay fresh for one week to 10 days. You can definitely keep your celery in your house. Keep celery heads whole, wrap them up tightly in aluminum foil, and then keep them in the refrigerator crisper drawer as usual. The plastic bag your celery came in traps in the ethylene it produces, which hastens its vegetal demise. Refrigerate the cucumbers overnight. Move the bowl into the refrigerator. You do not have to do anything now but wait and can leave the bowl alone for up to 24 hours.

If you wish to make sure the cucumbers stay crisp, cover the bowl with a towel and put a handful of ice on top of it.

After picking a cucumber , it will last for about one week in the refrigerator. Use a couple of your five senses to tell if a whole cucumber has spoiled.

If it feels squishy rather than firm, it's bad , but if only one end is soft , cut it off and eat the firm end. If you see any mold growth on the skin, don't eat it. Stack the slices in a sealable container. Then, place a folded paper towel on top of your cucumbers and put a lid on your container.

Store your cucumbers upside down so that the paper towel is on the bottom. Most slicing cucumbers for fresh eating should be harvested when they are seven to nine inches long and have a bright dark green color. If they get much larger than this, they'll be bitter and won't have a pleasant texture. When you pick cucumbers , leave a small, one-inch section of stem attached to the cucumber.

Soft spots or wrinkled skin are warning signs that your cuke is aging. A common trait of a cucumber gone bad is moisture or slime on the surface. I grew them for about 15 years.

Never had any trouble with them. Always a good crop except for what I explained before. Am I to understand that you have not harvested any straight cucumbers? Also — when you said not one edible one — what do you mean? Does it taste bad or is it too small to even eat? The three that I picked were like little balls with tails.

Those three were all that I have been able to pick so far. I just came in from the garden and there are alot of little ones waiting in the wings.

I have plenty of bees in the garden,so its not lack of pollinators. Roots are mulched with grass clippings, soaker hose running length of the trellis. Be careful what you wish for huh? One suggestion. Grow another variety next year in addition to the Straight 8s. That way you can see if its the variety or something else. They were fine eating — just looked funny. Theresa, I just munched the best baby cuke from my garden this morning.

Hi Theresa — I am trying to see from the picture how you support your cukes? Can you give me some more information when you have the chance. I like to use some old wooden easels we happen to have. Large netting is drapped around the easel.

For a better picture see July 4th Garden and Border 5th picture down. You can use tomato cages, tomato stakes — or even sticks small branches from a tree. Anything to help them grow up rather than all over. I am confused, one article says refrigerate for longer storage and one says never put cukes in the frig! Betty, you can find most anything online. Or — the best thing might be to try it both ways and decide for yourself.

I also am getting cucumbers a day and have been storing them in a pantry with other vegetables like tomatoes. They are soft after a day or two. I read do not refrigerate and keep room temperature. That was BAD information indeed.

I mentioned how to store cukes in the post. You way should work well also. I actually find when you purchase English cucumbers from the store they do better on the counter rather than storing in the fridge but when I harvest them out of my own garden the fridge is the only way to go. Go figure. Hi folks. I handle both the same way: Wrapped in dry paper towels and put in zip lock bags.

They last a lot longer. For my herbs, I moisten the paper towel first and check every few days. Hi Melanie I have a garden of my own. Keeping these cucumbers fresh are hard and they take up all the room in the garden. I will try out this secret and hopefully it works. Cucumbers and watermelon are my all time favorite! Thank you for the secret!!!! My cucumbers from the garden last a full 7 days on the counter.

I put them in the refrig. For another few days. Maybe mine are special, who knows. Some people fail to realize that there are conditions that are different in every household. Some people like a warmer house, some heating systems produce dry heat, etc. Garden cucumbers will always last longer because there is not the picking, hauling, and transportation involved with grocery cucumbers.

I think this is a wonderful tip and thank you for going through the trouble to share what you have found. The humidity control compartments in my fridge keeps cucumbers fresh for over a month. It really is amazing. Bully for me, eh? Make a cucumber salad with Italian dressing. Peel the cucumbers, then slice as thin as possible.

Cover with the Italian salad dressing and refrigerate. The vinegar in the dressing preserves the cucumbers and keeps them from spoiling. I understand organically grown cucumbers store longer and stay fresher than others.

Also heat is a major post harvest issue for fresh fruits and vegetables. Heat and moisture increases the rate of deterioration.

So then, how to explain this: I have two cucumbers that have sat on my kitchen counter since I picked them three weeks ago and are still in perfect condition as far as I can see. They are entirely organic, unwaxed, and are an old standby variety called Straight 8 picked at a fairly mature stage. It is also a simple matter to find the exact opposite advice — to never put them in the fridge — including findings on the subject from university studies that so advise.

Which is not to say you did not observe what you observed in your experiments, but I do think Sheila is right to remind us that conditions may vary. In fact I think there is a long list of additional variables she did not cite that could possibly result in cucumbers lasting longer on a counter than they do in a fridge, or last longer in a fridge than on a counter, depending on the variables….

My point is not to say your advice is wrong but to say it is probably not always correct — your cukes on your counter may have gone bad in two days but my cukes on my counter have lasted ten times that long and are still going.

I moved from West coast to midwest and the difference in what can stay out on the counter and not mold is night and day. Only tomatoes are ok. Even in the fridge things go bad here, washed, dried whatever. Thanks, this is very helpful, I will have to browse the rest of this site. It is a beautiful thing to do. Literally right before I read this, I read another article saying specifically to store them at room temperature.. LOL gotta love the internet….

I think it depends whether or not the cucumbers are waxed or not and if we are dealing with plastic wrapper english cucumbers. It is also important to remember that a cucumber is a fruit and will ripen faster if placed with other ethylene producing fruits.

I know a good trick on how to keep toss salad fresh for at least two days in the fridge. Place a slice or two of bread on top the salad then plastic wrap over the top of the bowl. The bread absorbs the excess moisture in the salad. WOW, this was a lot to absorb. I buy the Persian Pickles which are packed per bag and since I am the only one to eat these I will have to try all the different ways until I find what is best for me. I live In AZ where the humidity is low so maybe I will first try leaving them sit out.

If this does not work for me then it will be the fridge that I will try next. But thanks to everyone who reported on their methods as it gives people a variety of ways to try. If I get a bag that lasts until I eat them all I will be happy. Usually have to throw out about half the bag.