There is no person who does not love sweet, juicy, extremely tasty watermelon. This is a real storehouse of vitamins, minerals, trace elements that nature endows us with. But this largest berry in the world is extremely delicate, so if you want to keep a piece of summer until the New Year, or a little longer, you need to know what needs to be done to keep the watermelon fresh for as long as possible. In principle, storing watermelon until winter is as easy as it is, but some subtleties still need to be remembered.
How to properly store watermelon
Storage temperature
The storage temperature should not exceed +1 - +4°C, with a relative humidity of not more than 85%. When the temperature rises by 4-6 ° C, the watermelon begins to sour.
First of all, you need to be able to choose the right watermelon for storage. To do this, you need to know a few simple rules that will help preserve this berry. It is undesirable to buy early watermelons, they will not lie for a long time. In addition, now there are many cases when melon growers feed plantations with nitrates for faster ripening. You need to buy late varieties that ripen naturally by early September. You should not buy watermelons at spontaneous points, especially along roads, because the pulp of a watermelon instantly absorbs everything harmful that flies out of a car exhaust pipe. For storage, you need to choose medium-sized specimens, weighing 3.5-4.5 kg, of a brilliant color with a dried tail. A whole ripe fruit can be stored in the refrigerator, in the pantry, in the cellar, if it is in a multi-storey building. Watermelons should be stored on a soft bedding, the ideal option is straw, and the fruits should not come into contact with each other.
How to save a watermelon until the New Year
In the cellar where watermelons should be stored, there should not be other vegetables. You need to choose a fruit without cracks and spots. It is best to prepare the racks and line them with straw so that the watermelon does not lie on a hard surface. You can put the berry in a soft bag and hang it, so it will be well preserved. Watermelons should be regularly inspected in order to immediately reject the fruit, even with the slightest signs of spoilage, otherwise the rest will quickly deteriorate.
You can find a large box, put a watermelon and fill it with dry sand. If there is no cellar and cold pantry, then one or two watermelons can be wrapped in paper and put in the coldest zone in the refrigerator. In this case, watermelons can lie up to two months. There are lovers of pickling watermelons. In this case, you can pickle it in chunks, even in jars, or in barrels, entirely, but for this you will need to choose medium-sized specimens, up to 2 kilograms, no more.
How to store cut watermelon
If the watermelon is not completely eaten, then half of it can be put in the refrigerator, but not more than for two days, for a maximum of three, since its contents are very quickly susceptible to infection by bacteria.
In summer and autumn, many people enjoy juicy and sweet watermelons. Often you want to treat yourself to this berry in the cold season. Often this fails, because the fruits are simply not on sale or they are very expensive. But there is an opportunity to keep watermelon at home not only until the new year, but also until spring.
Optimal variety and conditions
Not all varieties of watermelons are suitable for long-term storage. Better than others, "Astrakhan striped", "Volga", "dessert" and "Melitopol" are suitable. The selected fruit must be in perfect condition - without dents, cracks and with a thick crust. Choose berries that ripen in mid-September - early October. The place where you intend to store watermelon should be cool. The optimum temperature is from +1 to + 5 °C. It should also be quite humid there: 85-90%. This room must be well ventilated.
It is better not to touch the watermelon with bare hands, for this, wear cloth gloves. The fetus should not come into contact with hard surfaces. Place straw or natural soft cloth under it. Remember that you can save a watermelon until the new year if it does not come into contact with other berries, but lies on a separate rack. Turn the watermelon constantly. This will prevent the appearance of dents in the peel and, as a result, rotting.
Folk ways
At home, you can save watermelon until spring using folk methods. One of them recommends using moss. It must be collected in the forest on a hot and sunny summer day. Lay it in a thick layer on the bottom of a wooden box and place the watermelon there. Cover the berry with moss on all sides and set aside in a cold place. For this, a basement or an open balcony is perfect. You can use wood ash instead of moss. Take as much as you need to cover the watermelon to the top. After you completely fill the berry, tightly close the container with a lid.
You can increase the shelf life of watermelon with moss, clay or wax.
Dilute the clay with water to a state of sour cream. Apply it all over the watermelon and let it dry completely. So the watermelon will remain canned until the destruction of the resulting crust. By the same principle, watermelons are stored in wax or paraffin. Melt the candle and pour over the watermelon on all sides, creating a 1 cm layer.
Hang a berry. Wrap it in natural fabric and attach it to the basement ceiling. A mesh bag is also great. You can store watermelon in the apartment. The main condition - do not allow light and overheating of the berries. Constantly ventilate the room and turn the watermelon over every day.
In a refrigerator
If the volume of a home refrigerator allows you to place a watermelon in it, then it will not be difficult to keep it for 3-4 months. Wash the berry and wipe it dry. Then wrap the watermelon in newsprint. You need to store it in the lower compartment of the refrigerator, specially designed for fruits and vegetables. Pre-lay it with a thick layer of natural fabric. Turn the watermelon every other day.
The pulp of this berry can be frozen. Cut it into cubes, divide into small portions and place in airtight bags. After defrosting, the pulp will lose its structure, so it is best to add such a product to compotes or cocktails.
sliced watermelon
If you cut and did not immediately eat a watermelon, you can either freeze it or leave it in the refrigerator for up to 7 days. A prerequisite for storing cut watermelon is the presence of coolness. Do not leave the berry on the table on a hot day, otherwise pathogenic bacteria may begin to develop in it.
Always place the watermelon cut side down to retain moisture and flavor. This berry absorbs odors well, so keep it away from meat, fish, and aromatic dishes. If it is not possible to store a watermelon in a refrigerator or cellar, then put it in a basin or bucket and cover the container tightly with a lid. For best results, dip the container in cold water.
In winter, you want summer products so much, and therefore it will be useful to learn how to save watermelon until the New Year. This fruit will cause a real sensation at the festive feast, while its taste will not change at all from the summer season. To do this, it is enough to know how to properly store watermelon at home, and since there are few such rules and they are all easy to use, it is quite realistic to keep juicy summer fruits until winter both in an apartment and in a private house.
In winter, you really want summer products, and therefore it will be useful to learn how to save watermelon until the New Year
For long-term storage, only late varieties of berries, which have a thicker skin, are suitable. Therefore, when choosing, you should pay attention to any kind of watermelon, the chill of which is not terrible:
- Volzhsky;
- Bykovsky;
- Pulse;
- Astrakhan with stripes;
- Dessert;
- Kholodov's gift.
In addition, the storage of watermelons will be correct if they are carefully selected: without cracks, damage, dents and other significant defects. For these purposes, it is better to purchase the fruit in September or even October. First of all, this rule provides for a reduction in the shelf life of watermelon. And you can achieve a guaranteed result if you grow such a berry of a suitable variety at home. Besides, it is also not as difficult as it might seem.
Thus, before proceeding to consider the question of how to freeze a watermelon for the winter, you should choose the right berry. That is, the product must be without visible defects, it can even be immature (you can recognize this by tapping, the sound must be sonorous), with a weight of up to 4 kg.
How to keep watermelon in the fridge
Since there is a refrigerator in every home, there is no need to deny yourself the pleasure of eating summer products in the winter. Of course, the technique is not rubber, the place in it is limited, but still one watermelon will fit in any refrigerator.
It should be noted right away that it will not be possible to save a quarter or a half of such a berry until winter, only the whole fruit is allowed to be stored for a long time.
The technology for storing watermelon in the refrigerator is very simple:
- The fruit is first washed gently so as not to damage the peel.
- After wiping with paper towels. It must be completely dry.
- Then the berry should be wrapped with a thick layer of newspapers.
- We cover the bottom shelf of the refrigerator with a cloth, on which we put the prepared watermelon.
Shelf life with such storage is a maximum of 4 months, if all these recommendations are followed. In this case, it is necessary to turn the fruit every 2 days.
There are several popular ways. And they are all based on the right temperature.
Besides the fact that watermelon can be stored in the refrigerator, it can also be done using the freezer. However, freezing must be correct, since such a berry, after thawing, can change its texture due to the content of a large amount of water. There are a few simple rules for effective freezing:
- The freezer should have a quick defrost mode. Otherwise, most of the nutrients and vitamins will be lost.
- The first 2 hours the fruit must be frozen in fast mode, and after that you can already set the usual freezing.
- At a temperature of minus 19-23°C, the shelf life can reach 1 year.
In the freezer, watermelon can also be stored in cut form. To do this, you must first remove all the seeds, cut the pulp into pieces and place in a closed container.
Storage conditions in the apartment
If you decide to store watermelons until the New Year in an apartment, then first of all you need to decide on a place. The most reliable is a refrigerator, but this is not always a possible option, since such a large berry will have to be stored for several months, and it takes up a lot of space. Of course, you can cut it, but frozen watermelon often loses its taste. If it is inconvenient to keep a watermelon in the refrigerator, then it is better to find another place for it.
In the search process, the following main criteria should be taken into account, which the repository should have:
- watermelon storage temperature should not exceed +8°C;
- ventilation;
- exclusion of light and sunlight;
- humidity level should be in the range of 60-80%.
There are not so many places in the apartment that will meet the above criteria, but they are still available. These repositories include:
- glazed balcony;
- a room with a low temperature that is poorly lit;
- mezzanine.
In such places, the stored watermelon will not lose its juiciness and taste.
Since storage is not the only requirement for long-term storage of summer berries, it is important to decide specifically on the method from which not everyone can fit. We suggest that you familiarize yourself with each in order to choose the most suitable indoor watermelon storage option:
- Hanging. This is the easiest way to store such a large berry, even in an apartment. To do this, you only need to wrap the fruit with natural matter, then put it in a string bag and hang it from the ceiling.
- Any watermelon can get the right chill from the sand. To use this method, you will need a wooden box in which you need to put the berry and bury it in the sand. All this is recommended to be stored in a cool and dark place. For these purposes, grain can also be used instead of sand.
- The use of straw. Living in an apartment and not having a basement, it is difficult to store a watermelon in the refrigerator from summer to winter. But this is not a reason to refuse delicacies for the New Year holidays, because you can create basement conditions in the apartment. To do this, lay out a thick layer of straw on a shelf or in a box, and then place the fruit in this place, overlaying it with additional straw.
By creating the right storage conditions, the whole family can enjoy delicious watermelon in winter.
Advantages of a private house or cottage
It is possible to preserve all the qualities of a watermelon before the New Year holidays in apartment conditions, but it will still be much easier to do it in a country house or in a private house. The main difference between such places is the basement, as well as the possibility of storing the fetus in suitable conditions. So, for example, you can easily wrap several berries at once with a cloth and hang them in string bags on the ceiling in the basement, where there is a suitable temperature regime and humidity level, while they will not bother anyone before the onset of winter. You can store watermelons in the cellar in the same way as in the apartment, only in this case you do not have to artificially create the necessary conditions and set any restrictions so as not to harm the stored fruit.
It is very convenient to place barrels of sand in the cellar, where watermelons will be located. The sand does not have to be changed, and due to the temperature in the room, the berries will be constantly cool.
Barrels can also be used to store watermelons in water. The water will be constantly cool, so all the taste of the fruit will last until winter. The liquid must completely cover the berries, otherwise the sun and light rays that fall on the watermelons will not allow them to be stored for a long time. Using this method of storage, you need to periodically change the water - if not every day, but at least 3 times a month.
In addition to the basement, in a private house there are several other great places where you can store watermelons until winter:
- garage;
- attic;
- summer kitchen, if you do not cook in it;
- pantry.
In addition to the above storage methods, you can use other equally effective ones:
- With the help of ashes. The bottom of a small box should be well sprinkled with ashes, put a summer fruit and pour a little more on top. After that, the box should be tightly closed, put in a cellar or other suitable place in the house.
- Watermelons are able to retain their taste for 3-4 months if they are treated with paraffin or wax. With the selected material, carefully cover the fruit with a brush, and the layer thickness should not exceed 1 cm.
- Berries are perfectly stored in clay, which must first be diluted with clean water to the consistency of sour cream. The fruit is processed with this material, and when it dries, it is stored in a cold place for storage.
During the harvest season, every housewife is concerned, first of all, with how to preserve the fruits for the longest possible time. Today we will talk about how to store watermelons in the cellar so that the fragrant sweet pulp will please you for more than one month, and perhaps even before the New Year. If you are lucky and have a cool dark place where you can put ripe berries, then you should definitely use this and surprise guests in the middle of winter.
What should you pay attention to if you have an idea to store watermelons in the cellar?
- Selection of fruits
This is the most important point, because not all varieties of this berry are able to tolerate long-term maintenance even under ideal conditions.
- Storage conditions
Just as not every watermelon lasts until the New Year, not every cellar is suitable for placing melons in it. Let's dwell on each point in detail.
How to choose the right watermelon for storage
It is recommended to consider Astrakhan striped and Popovka as "lying" varieties. A little less durable will be "Astrakhan marble", "Bykovsky 15" and "Melitopol 143".
In addition to the variety, attention should be paid to the fruits themselves.
Purchase terms
We do not buy watermelons for storage in early or mid-August.
The best time to purchase is the end of September. It is then that the fruits will be the sweetest and most ripe, without the risk of high nitrate content in them.
Appearance and integrity
If the selected variety should have stripes, look at their outlines: bright, with a noticeable border, indicate good quality and naturalness of the product.
Otherwise (the stripes are blurred), the watermelon was most likely subjected to accelerated growth (the risk of buying a watermelon with nitrates).
Fruits lying directly on the ground are also not worth buying - microcracks on the peel will reduce the shelf life, a watermelon with them can begin to rot in a few weeks.
We choose fruits with a smooth peel without dents and damage.
Size and place of purchase
It is best to purchase medium-sized berries from the entire batch, as too large ones can be overripe.
- Be sure to pay attention to the state of the halo under the tail - it should be keratinized, and not fresh green. This indicates a good ripeness of the watermelon.
- It is better not to buy melons in the supermarket - as a rule, unripe fruits are delivered there, and such ones will not have sufficient sweetness in the future.
- If watermelons grew in their own garden, then we remove them for storage about 4-5 days before the planned harvest.
You can read about more detailed nuances of choosing a striped berry in our article "." But even if the variety is chosen correctly, storage cannot be guaranteed without other equally important conditions.
Place
Before laying or even buying melons, let's decide on a place, because watermelons cannot be stored in the same room as potatoes or other vegetables.
It is best to make a separate lockable compartment for them.
Training
The main condition is careful handling. Regardless of where our watermelons come from, they must be transported to the place of storage and handled as carefully as possible to prevent dents or cracks.
In addition, in no case do we fold the fruits in several layers, especially during transportation. We also do not transport them and do not keep them on a hard surface before sending them to the cellar. A soft bedding of rags will protect the peel.
Next, wash the watermelons thoroughly and not just wipe them with a towel, but let them dry completely. Ideally, they should be lined with straw or dry grass at night to “exude”, that is, maximum dehydration of the peel.
Storage method
The cellar should be equipped with hooks or shelves, since both methods of storing watermelons are considered optimal.
hanging watermelon
In the first case, we put each berry in a separate net and hang it on a hook.
Watermelons in the sand
In the second, we fill the shelves with sand, cover them with straw or rags and lay out clean, dry watermelons. As we remember, there should not be a hard surface that will injure the fetus.
In no case do not stack watermelons side by side. There must be a distance of at least 5-10 cm between them. If one of the fruits begins to rot, this will help mold and fungus not spread to healthy berries.
We do not touch the berries hanging in the net at all.
Storage of watermelons in the cellar: temperature and humidity
Cool, moist air is considered optimal, 5-8 degrees above 0 and 75% - 80% humidity. Moderate cold will ensure long-term storage and protect watermelons as much as possible from the appearance of pests and fungi, and humidity will allow the berry to remain juicy.
If the cellar turns out to be too dry, we risk getting not juicy pulp in November, but a sluggish substance, since the watermelon will evaporate too much moisture.
How long can watermelons be stored in the cellar? Obviously, if all these recommendations are followed, they can hold out there until the New Year for sure.
Well, for those who consider all of the above to be insufficient, we will describe several more effective, but more complex and time-consuming ways of storing melons in the cellar.
- We fill wooden boxes with dry straw or clean sand by 1/3.
- We put watermelons in them.
- We fill the remaining space with the substrate.
Despite the fact that once again it will not be possible to check the condition of the crop, it will be possible to store watermelons in this way for at least a month. The main thing is to observe the condition of isolation - between the berries there should be either straw or sand.
You can also use wood ash or moss for these purposes:
- ash should be of natural origin and preferably hardwood,
- moss is collected in the forest and dried in the sun before use.
Storing watermelons in clay
An excellent adsorbent and disinfectant, clay will keep fruits fresh for a long time.
- We apply a thick layer of liquid clay on watermelons.
- Let the clay dry completely.
- Then we lower the processed watermelons into the cellar.
- We lay out separately and take out as needed.
Now you know how to store watermelons in the cellar so that they last as long as possible and even in deep winter delight your home with their summer juiciness.
Melon and watermelon are one of the most delicious delicacies in August-September. Both adults and children love to eat them, but with the advent of cold weather, these delicacies deteriorate and disappear from store shelves. But sometimes you really want to enjoy juicy watermelon and melon on New Year's holidays, the sweetness of which is incomparable to anything, and the taste reminds of a warm summer. And to do this, you just need to learn from us how to keep watermelon and melon until the New Year as fresh as they were in the summer on the market or store shelves.
Choosing a watermelon and melon in the summer for the New Year
In order for the watermelon and melon purchased in the summer to live up to the New Year's celebration and at the same time not rot and deteriorate, first of all you will need to be able to choose them correctly. Therefore, when you come to the store to buy juicy berries, you don’t need to rush and grab the first watermelon or melon that comes across, you first need to carefully consider them.
When buying a melon, you need to pay special attention to the fact that it must be unripe. You can understand that a melon is not ripe by the presence of cracks on its skin - the fewer there are, the less ripe this berry is. Yes, and the color of the peel is of tremendous importance, especially for smooth melons. If it is bright orange or yellow, then the melon is ripe, so to save for the New Year, it is better to pick up melons with a greenish rind.
When buying a watermelon, you again need to pay attention to its peel. It should be absolutely intact and not have any mechanical damage, that is, the watermelon should not be cracked, beaten or even slightly scratched. And varieties of watermelon should be chosen those that are characterized by strong pulp and thick skin. These include varieties of watermelons Volzhsky, Astrakhan, Gift Kholodov, Dessert and Bykovsky.
And if you want to enjoy a berry now, then ours will help you.
Having chosen the berries and brought them home, you can proceed to the second stage, that is, decide how to save watermelon and melon for the winter at home so that you can enjoy them from the heart in the New Year.
Before putting the melon into storage for the holiday, it is necessary to carefully check once again whether there are any damages on it - sagging, cracks or dents. If the melon is intact, then we take the food foil, which we usually use for baking dishes in the oven, and wrap the melon with it so that it can breathe through it. Then we take a string bag, put a wrapped melon in it and hang it in a dark and not humid room, the air temperature in which ranges from 2 to 40C.
If you decide to save not one, but several melons for the holiday, then each of them must be placed in a separate grid and ensure that they do not touch each other. It is also worth looking at the melons from time to time, because if one of them starts to deteriorate, it is better to immediately remove it from the rest. Many housewives, by the way, adhere to this particular method, because it is impossible to completely insure against the corruption of a melon, and at least 2-3 things will survive until the New Year.
There is another way to save a melon until the New Year. True, for it is suitable only for those who live in the village or who have a dacha. After all, for this we need a huge box full of grain or sand. In this box, we put the melon with the stalk down and take it to the basement, where no more food will be stored, so that foreign odors are not absorbed into the melon.
From fresh melon to the New Year's table, you can cook an original dish -.
There are many more ways to store a watermelon than there are ways to store a melon, so each housewife chooses the option that she likes.
It is stored in moss collected dry in the forest in sunny weather. To do this, you just need to take a voluminous wooden box, cover its bottom with moss, put a watermelon there, and cover it with moss on all sides. And until the holidays, this box can safely stand in the cellar, you will only need to control the air temperature so that it does not fall below 20C. In the same way, you can store watermelon in wood ash or straw.
But if such methods do not suit you, then there are several more options for how to store watermelon until the New Year right at home. To do this, you just need to dilute alabaster or clay with water so that the solution looks like thick sour cream. This solution is simply applied with a brush to the watermelon, and you're done. It can then be stored in any cool and dry place. In the same way, you can save a watermelon with wax or paraffin, which must be melted, and then applied with a centimeter layer to the berry, which will then go to the pantry for storage.
From this berry on the festive table you can cook wonderful
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