Surprise! There’s a freeze coming and you aren’t ready. That’s how it seems to go. It was 90* on Saturday and our first freeze arrived Wednesday morning. The plant, vegetable and bulb killing forecast popped up while out of town so we are scrambling to get everything inside in an incredibly short amount of time. Granted, this isn’t the first time this has happened, although it doesn’t make the workload any less demanding. Never knowing when the first freeze might come, we leave those green tomatoes, little peppers, and still growing herbs out as long as we can. This year, it’s pretty much right on time. Being our first year growing luffas, we put them in a bit late. One ripened in time for peeling, the rest are inside and will hopefully dry out. Either way, here’s what go time looks like when you want to get the most out of the garden before it’s over until next spring.
Vegetables-
There are a few plants like broccoli and garlic that can handle a freeze. In fact, you should have your garlic planted now for next spring/summer. Most vegetables though will be toast, BUT quite a bit of it can ripen inside. Any tomatoes that have started to turn red and pumpkins for example can ripen indoors in a sunny location. If you still have beans, peppers, sweet potatoes, carrots, etc.… try to get them inside. Sweet potatoes and carrots can be stored in a dry dark basement or root cellar (save a few sweet potatoes for next year’s starts). Peppers need to be refrigerated or frozen fairly quickly. Unless you have enough tomatoes to can, you’ll just have to eat them.
If you haven’t saved seeds from these vegetables yet, do so now.
Herbs-
Herbs need to come inside as well. Some, like mint, will likely come back again next year. There are three ways to dry herbs. Hang them, dry them in the oven on a low temperature (I dried my parsley for 45 minutes at 170*) or use a food dehydrator. We’re using all three. I’m using a coffee grinder to chop the dried leaves. If you have seeds you can dump the seed stems upside down into a paper bag and get to them later.
Flowers-
While there aren’t many left, we still have zinnias, marigolds and cosmos. Make your final bouquet and enjoy a few of those flowers for another week or so. This is also the best time to look for seed heads on your remaining flowers. You don’t need to separate the seeds out, you can do that next spring when you’re ready to plant them again. We also keep a pot of celosia flowers which are in full-blown seed mode this time of year. You can cut the flowers and put them in a bag or on some wax paper to collect the seeds or set the pot on a large piece of packing paper. The seeds look like pepper, just fold the paper and dump the seeds into an envelope.
You’ll also need to dig up any non-perennial bulbs such as cannas, elephant ears and gladiolus. Our soil was too dry to safely dig them up, so we watered enough to dig the night before and got them the next day. Get your bulbs dried out in a dark place in a cardboard box. Then you can store them through the winter.
Finally, if you have potted mums, get them in the ground! If your forecast calls for a warm up in a few days, bring them in and plant them when it overnight lows are above freezing. Plant them in a sunny location, keep them watered well and there’s a good chance they’ll come back next year. Most mums are perennials in zones 5-9.
If you weren’t able to get everything in before the first freeze, don’t give up right away. The first freeze isn’t usually hard and doesn’t usually last long. This morning’s freeze dropped us down to 26* and lasted around six hours. It’s significant, but not necessarily end-game. Still gather seeds. At anytime you can start a handful inside to check viability. I usually do this in January with all my saved seeds so I have enough time to find out which ones are good before starting them in February-April for the garden.
As you can see with the pictures below, quite a few plants didn't make it. Several flowers and herbs such as mint and sage however did.
Anything in the ground like carrots and sweet potatoes will probably be okay, still bring them in as soon as you can. Check tomatoes and peppers for firmness. If they’re soft/swishy they’re gone.
There is a part of me that is sad that the growing season is over. There is another part however, that is looking forward to a few months to hunker down a bit and enjoy a winter of hearty meals made with food from our own back yard. Come January, we’ll be planning and dreaming about next year’s growing season.
Audrey L Elder
Fourteen Acre Wood
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