How to harvest and what to do with all those vegetables when your area gets a frost warning.

We have our first frost warning of the season tonight in Minnesota. It’s supposed to get down to 35 degrees Fahrenheit with scattered frost. Some vegetables can withstand a light frost; beans, peas, onions, and carrots will all be fine. However, there are plenty of plants that will turn to mush at the first sign of frost; basil, tomatoes, and squash probably won’t survive.

One thing you can do is build a structure around the plants you want to save and cover it with greenhouse plastic, or buy some frost cloth and cover the plants overnight when it gets down to the coldest temperature of the day.

The other chore to do when frost is on the horizon is harvest the vegetables from the garden and start cooking, canning and freezing.

Here is my chore list for today: Harvesting all Tomatoes, Peppers, Cilantro and Basil and how I cook or freeze it for the winter.

• Harvest ALL Basil and make pesto, freeze in batches for later.
• Harvest all Tomatoes except super green ones to ripen on the counter top.
• Harvest all ripe Tomatoes and Cilantro and make into salsa and freeze.
• With extra Tomatoes cut off stems, place on cookie sheet and put in the oven at 375 for 10 minutes, let cool and peel. Then you can place the entire peeled tomato(es) in freezer bags and freeze for later.
• Harvest all green beans, cook lightly and freeze.
• Harvest all peppers and either peel like the tomatoes and freeze or freeze whole. Red bell peppers I peel and freeze, green bell and jalapeno I just put in freezer bags raw and whole.

Happy harvesting, cooking and freezing.