Frost forecasted? Here’s your to-do list

Saturday, October 10, 2020

With frost in the air, summer loving veggies are coming to the end of their season.  Veggies like tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, cucumber, basil, and peppers do not like cold weather.  It is time to harvest the last of the summer veggies and get the cold crops the protection they need to continue producing through fall and winter.

Basil turns black when bitten with the first frost.  Harvest all remaining basil when they call for low temperatures of 36 or below to be on the safe side.  I make lots of pesto and freeze.  Makes for a super quick and tasty meal any time.  Basil basics-harvesting, preserving, growing basil

Our zucchini gave up weeks ago.  If you want to keep strong zucchini and summer squash production until frost, it is best to plant a second round of plants in mid-summer.  Growing zucchini and summer squash

Cucumbers are still producing in my garden.  Cucumber info and tips for growing  If yours is still producting, harvest what is on the vine and put in the fridge to use for salads or smoothies.  Grow your own smoothie and juice garden

The peppers are still producing.  They handle cooler weather better than the rest of the summer veggies.  I’ll wait until it is going to get below 28 before I strip off all the peppers still on the plant.  See Peppers are for every taste and garden and  Preserving peppers  for growing and preserving info.  For my favorite plants, I usually bring indoors to overwinter.  They will continue to flower and fruit for weeks in the unheated garage and have a jump on production in the spring.  Peppers, tomatoes and eggplant are all tropical perennials.  This year, I am not bringing any of them indoors except my Chipetin ancient pepper as my freezer is bursting at the seams.  I've had it for 5 years now.

I'll follow the same approach for tomatoes.  When it is going to get below 32, I’ll take off all tomatoes left on the vine.  The best way to get them to ripen is to wrap each individually in newspaper and store in a dark location.  They will slowly ripen.  Won’t be as tasty as off the vine, but better than what you can get in the store.  Last year, I had ripe tomatoes through February.  Or you can do fried green tomatoes A late fall tradition-fried green tomatoes!  You can bring in your favorite tomato plants to an unheated garage, too, to overwinter.

I am still getting a few tomatoes.  I typically wait until it is nice and chilly to start canning.  I'll take all of last year's frozen tomatoes and make into sauce for the winter.  I like waiting until it is cooler before canning!  This year, I have plenty of sauce left from last year and we used up all the frozen tomatoes saved from 2019.  I am going to try pressure canning of venison this fall, though.  Preserving the tomato harvest

My eggplants are still giving us a few fruits each day.  I had lots of volunteer eggplants come up.  They are happy in their pots.  We have great luck growing our eggplant in pots.  Eggplant-add this native from India to your garden  I freeze the extra eggplants I have either sliced in half or thinner slices to be grill ready.  It is best to blanch eggplant before freezing to keep them tasty for months in the freezer.  Freezing the extras for winter

Now is also a great time to divide any perennials you have, whether they be herbs, edibles or ornamentals.  This will give them all fall and winter to put down strong roots.  Perennial greens are always the first up in the spring.  Midwest Perennial Vegetable Garden

It is still not too late to transplant fall crops like cold hardy types of lettuce, cabbage, chard, pak choi, broccoli, kale, parsley, garlic, onions or perennial herbs.

Now is the time to order your mini greenhouse to extend the season.  I'll put mine out over the greens in my Earthboxes to keep the lettuce and greens going all winter when they are calling for a freeze.  Preparing for a hard freeze

Portable greenhouse for winter greens