Yet another question!! I had grown some peppers from seed this year and thankfully had planted a couple in a small garden we have at work (since we know what happened to my loverly garden ). They both produced 3 or 4 peppers and are flowering again, but all the peppers produced took FOREVER to change color and most of them had a soft spot on them or a series of thin, brown lines on them, usually near the bottom of the pepper. Any ideas about what could have caused this? Are they any good? Also, is it true that if you pick bell peppers while they are green, that you can keep them in your fridge and they will turn color there? If so, how long can they stay in the fridge for and still be good? Geez, I hope some day I have answers for people, instead of just questions - though my gardening notebook is filling up with great insight from this forum!!

I have never had luck ripening peppers in the fridge, they wilt first.

As for the bad spots on ones that have turned red, I have that problem too. Must be the humidity, tho I must say I've had many more turn red this year than in the past, so could that be the heat?

As for the spots, just cut them away. The rest of the pepper is good.

Sounds like blossom end rot, which most people think of as a tomato problem. Nothing wrong with them, like Mumsey says, just cut off the bad spot and eat the rest. Easiest way to avoid is to keep moisture levels in the soil around the plants from fluctuating. Admittedly, it is hard to do, especially when you have a drought for much of the summer. Mulch will help with this to some extent: use dark color, since peppers want the heat and straw mulch may not let the soil heat up as much as peppers prefer.