What to Do Before the First Freeze: Tips for Maximizing Your Late-Season Harvest

With an inevitable frost or freeze looming on the horizon, many gardeners will soon be returning to their vegetable gardens one last time for the season, ready to harvest anything and everything that’s edible. From green tomatoes to tiny peppers, to undersized radish, beets, and cucumbers, and the last clinging leaves of kale, even a sparse garden can offer a charcuterie of options for the dinner plate when looking in the right direction. But what exactly are those directions?

Creative Uses for Under-Sized or Less-Than-Perfect-Produce

Turning first to the better-known, many common vegetable garden crops can be harvested at any size, which is an important factor to remember when hard freezes arrive. Hard freezes of below 28 degrees Fahrenheit damage tender vegetables by rupturing their cells as freezing water expands within them. Among those that can be harvested young to avoid this are carrots, radishes, beets, peppers, cucumbers, beans, and okra. Then, if wondering what to do with this large supply of less-than-ideal delights, they can turn to pickling them for garnish, pureeing for baked goods, or creating a chopped catch-all mix to freeze and incorporate in stews later. After all, a baby carrot in October is still better than a putrid carrot in November. Gardeners should then remember that the usual harvest isn’t the only one on the table! The greens of carrots, radishes, and beets are all edible and easily used in sautés, pestos, or salads.

Frost-Sensitive vs. Cold-Tolerant Greens

Turning next to leafy greens, harvest rescue missions become a little more nuanced depending on the specific crop worked with. This is because while certain greens like lettuce, chicories, and leafy herbs are delicate and will succumb to a light frost, other crops, including kale, spinach, and collards, will remain viable in cold conditions until a hard freeze. In other words, selectively timed harvesting of greens should be the route taken if not aiming to fully shut down a garden at once. Looking at other non-leafy fall crops, including broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, and cauliflower, these also tolerate cooler temperatures up to a hard freeze, and can persist in the garden well into early winter.

Ripening Tomatoes Indoors

Looking toward tomatoes, gardeners should keep in mind one simple rule: If the fruits have a white star underneath them, they should ripen indoors. This indicator signifies they have reached a state of maturity where they can continue to ripen off the vine, thanks to the ethylene hormone they naturally produce. Gardeners should also remember that, however, cracked, bruised, or damaged tomatoes are not good candidates for indoor ripening. Because these harvests are often stacked or piled to save space, mold and rot eventually developing on one fruit can easily contaminate others.

Harvesting and Curing Sweet Potatoes

Finally, looking at sweet potatoes, gardeners should remember that these don’t like cold at all! Sweet potatoes are highly susceptible to cold damage, and as such, should be dug up and stored for curing before a frost event happens. The storing location itself should then also be warm, ideally 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit, to maintain their quality.

With these tips and tricks in mind, you’ll be able to continue enjoying the rewards of your harvest, long past your garden’s bedtime.

by Anthony Reardon, Horticulture Small Farms Agent, 2025