Top ten tips on apple storage

PaulaRed, photo courtesy of Lewis Farm Market/flickr.com

It has been a wonderful year for fruits to grow and mature. Above average temperatures during the early part of the growing season and plenty of moisture contributed to producing good-sized, flavoursome fruits. Apples are the easiest fruit to store. Pears can be stored successfully but only if you are able to keep the temperature as close as you can to 1 degree Celsius. Apples store well at 3 degrees Celsius. Plums, greengages, peaches and apricots are best ripened off in the kitchen and used for daily consumption or bottling.

Read more about harvesting and storing fruit here.

 

Tips on storing apples
This time of the year, remember the following if you want to store some apples for the winter months:
1) Only store fruits without holes, cracks or small patches of discoloured brown rot.
2) Pick very carefully. Handle the fruits like eggs. Bruising the fruit is as bad as a hole in the fruit.
3) Do not store over-mature fruit. These fruits won’t keep.
4) Colourless immature fruit from the centre of the tree tends to shrivel once in store.
5) The taste of the fruit must be fully developed, before it is ready to pick. Always taste the fruit first before you pick it.
6) Put the fruit on single-layer trays.
7) Keep the temperature ideally at an even level and as close as you can to 3 degrees Celsius.
8) Fruit stores best in the dark and at high humidity.
9) Make sure mice are not present where you store your fruit as they will nibble the fruit and destroy your harvest.
10) Inspect your fruit once a week and remove those fruits which ripen first and are ready to eat.