Freezing Bell Peppers

Do you have more peppers than you can handle? Do you, like me, feel terrible when food goes to waste? Bumper crops are a blessing…until they leave you overwhelmed, frantically scrolling through recipes, searching for ways to use them. If these truths are hitting home for you, it’s time to make use of your freezer, my friend.

Super Simple Process

The great thing about bell peppers is that you can freeze them with very little preparation. Just grab a knife, cutting board, and baking sheet, and get started!

Step 1: Rinse and dry your peppers.

Step 2: Chop up your peppers however your little heart desires.

Step 3: Spread the chopped peppers out on a baking sheet.

Step 4: Throw the baking sheet into your freezer for about an hour.

Step 5: Store the frozen chopped peppers in a freezer bag in your freezer until you need them.

Step 2: Chop peppers.

Step 3: Spread peppers on baking sheet.

Step 5: Store frozen chopped peppers in bag.

Using Frozen Peppers

I cook with frozen peppers pretty much exactly the way I would raw peppers, except that I allow for slightly more cooking time. Because the peppers bits are frozen individually on the tray before they’re put into the bag, they’re easy to scoop out of the freezer bag when you need them. Your peppers should last in the freezer for a year.

Perks of Freezing Your Peppers

Freezing your peppers with this method is doing a favor for future you. You’ll be making a recipe in November that calls for peppers, and you’ll say to yourself, “I need a quarter cup of bell peppers, self!” Next thing you know, you’ll be reaching into your freezer and voila! The prep work of chopping your peppers has already been done! You’ll thank your past self and move on with your life.

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Read more about Fail Better Farms!

What Early March Looks Like on the Farm

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What’s going on with us?

Things are pretty nonstop here. When we aren’t actively farming, we’re planning and dreaming of what we want the farm to look like. Here’s a quick peek at what’s happening here.

Outside

Aaron is prepping the beds by checking pH levels, laying out landscape fabric, and using low tunnels to warm the beds.

Collins (does not at all) lend(s) a helping hand in the garden, while Samson looks on from the other side of the garden fence.

Inside

The seeds are starting to sprout under UV lights, and Aaron is converting a washing machine into a greens dryer.

All in All

It’s a lot of work, but we’re happy to have the opportunity to do it. Farming is challenging and rewarding, just like anything else worth doing.

The Method to the Madness

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Farming is like anything else: it’ll absorb as much time, energy, and money as you want to invest. The more you invest, the more success you’ll have…hopefully. Aaron and I are both school teachers, and we’ve used the past few years to figure out how to make farming fit into our lives. That fit has sometimes been a square peg in a round hole, but we’re committed to growing good food, so we persist. Part of making farming work for us means we need to strategically spread out the workload over the course of our off-season. Once spring rolls around, life becomes a whirlwind of chores, and there’s not much time to step back and take in the big picture.

The Obsession

Aaron has spent way too many hours so far this winter methodically mapping out our garden beds for the coming season. (This does not include the hours he’s spent ogling seed catalogues, by the way.) He’s applying the knowledge he’s gained through a Market Gardener Master Class facilitated by J.M. Fortier, a Permaculture Design program through Oregon State University, a C.A.S.E. certification (Curriculum for Agricultural Science Education) at Kentucky University, and the endless gardening podcasts he listens to. The man doesn’t mess around.

The Plan

The spreadsheet Aaron created to plan our crops is intricate and proactive. It includes important dates for sowing seeds, transplanting, fertilizing, cultivating, etc. He’s been going at it like a mad scientist for weeks now. Adhering to the measure-twice-cut-once philosophy, he’s hyper planning now so that we can more easily carry out the heavy lifting of farming in the spring and summer months when it’s harder to think on your toes.

The Rules

Crop planning around here follows a few rules:

1. The crops we plant in our 20 beds are scheduled in a 10 year rotation where a given crop of heavy feeders are followed by nitrogen-enhancing crops (the plant equivalent of dainty eaters—leafy greens).

2. Our crops are planted in clustered intervals so that they don’t all ripen at the same time.

3. Crops are planted as close to one another as possible in order to maximize output and eliminate space for weeds.

4. We don’t plant foods our kids refuse to eat. (Sorry, fennel.)

5. We respect the natural soil food web and therefore plant cover crops liberally. (You’re welcome, worms.)

The Application

Each season of farming teaches us something new. How best to enrich the soil through compost and natural fertilizers. Which weeds to let grow because they improve the land. Which crops people in our lives most enjoy. How to prevent the kids and dog from destroying the insect netting. There’s no end to learning when you recognize nature as your teacher. We use the winter months to harness our learned lessons from the previous growing season and apply them toward the next.

The Video

Watch the video below to hear a little bit about why we plan the beds the way we do.