The frost warning is out. What do you need to get done now, and what can wait? Some garden tasks are must-dos before the first frosts, like draining the hose timer and bringing it indoors. Others are less vital, but still important, like cutting bouquets or planting some last perennials.

Here’s a quick checklist to help you remember what to focus on as the frosts and freezing temperatures approach.

1. Harvest Tomatoes and Peppers

A brief dip down to freezing is enough to kill frost-sensitive tomato and pepper plants. If the frosty temps are only an hour in the early morning, it may not bother your fruits, but there’s no sense in taking the risk.

Even mostly green tomatoes ripen on the counter, so grab all the peppers and tomatoes and bring them inside. If the weather takes a chilly turn, the freezing temperatures will damage them, making them mushy and unfit to eat.

2. Bring in Melons and Summer Squash

The first frosts will spell the end for melon and summer squash plants, killing the vines. An overnight dip into the high 20s easily damages thinner-skinned produce. Unlike cantaloupes, muskmelons such as honeydew melons and watermelons do not ripen off the vine. Harvest those last zucchini, patty pans, and any ripe melons and bring them inside.

3. Dig Potatoes

It’s not absolutely necessary to do before the first frost, but if you haven’t grabbed your spuds from your garden yet, digging them up before a hard frost hits isn’t a bad idea. The longer you delay the potato harvest, the harder it gets. It’s easier to find potatoes when the vines are still in place. Shortly after the first frosts, potato vines will begin to decompose at a faster rate. Any weeds or other plants that are killed by the frost will also be brown and lying on the ground, masking the location of your potatoes.

Your carrots, beets, turnips, parsnips, and rutabagas will be fine through a light frost, and may keep growing if the weather warms.

4. Cut Flower Bouquets

Cut bouquets of all your frost-sensitive flowers like cosmos, dahlias, sunflowers, amaranth, and zinnias, and fill your vases. Consider saving some flowers for drying. It may seem a bit drastic to cut all these flowers at once, but unless you protect the plants with frost cloth, they won’t be making more blooms anyway, and the flowers will be ruined when left on the plant during a frost.

5. Cover Desirable Annuals

Sometimes the first frost arrives surprisingly early. If you have annuals you’d like to keep going, you may be able to use frost cloth to shelter them on the first chilly nights. Frost cloth (polypropylene fabric) typically comes in large sheets or rolls.

Products vary in thickness and, therefore, protection levels. Under a frost cloth offering 4°F of protection, the temperature is 4°F higher than the air temperature. This can be just enough to ward off a light frost so cold-sensitive plants will survive.

When using a frost cloth, ensure it is securely anchored to the ground. It works by trapping heat in, so it needs to be held down in the soil for best results. Flapping in the wind or gaps at ground level will make it ineffective.

Frost cloth can be laid directly on top of sturdy plants, but should be supported with hoops or rope between posts for delicate plants. It is lightweight, but gets heavy enough with dew, rain, or snow to bend thinner plant stems and flower buds.

6. Bring in Cold-Sensitive Potted Plants

Many of our favorite plants on our decks or patios are not frost-hardy. Some, like tropical hibiscus, won’t tolerate it at all. Even a night of 32°F is enough to kill some tropical plants. Move containers into your garage or other indoor spot that will stay above freezing. When temperatures rise again, move them back outside to enjoy a little longer.

Well before the first frost, move any houseplants back indoors that spent the summer outside. It’s easy to forget about them on the first cold night, as you are running around taking care of other things, so pull them off the patio a couple of days early. Plus, many types of houseplants won’t tolerate temperatures below 50°F well so it’s best to use that number as your threshold rather than a frost.

7. Drain Hoses, Sprinklers, and Water Features

It seems obvious, but bringing in all our hoses and other water-carrying implements is something people always forget. The first light touch of frost won’t hurt your garden hose, but a night of freezing temperatures can damage watering nozzles, rupture sprinklers, and ruin irrigation timers.

Water expands when it freezes, increasing in volume by about 9%. The force of that expansion is strong enough to break steel pipes, split open watering wands, hose fittings, and anything else with water trapped in it, such as water features or hose timers.

8. Plant Perennials

Not something to worry about the night before a frost, but if you haven’t started planting perennials, it’s time. That pot of black-eyed Susans you bought on sale at the garden center needs to go in the ground soon, and the first frost is a good reminder that your time is running low.

Fall is a great time for planting certain perennials, and many nurseries offer them at steep discounts. If you plant them before the first frost, they still have time to put out some root growth before going dormant for the winter.

9. Take Lots of Garden Pictures

If you still have dahlias blooming, zinnias showing off, or other tender flowers, take a few pictures. One morning of frost will turn five-foot-tall dahlia plants into a mess of black, soggy foliage. Record the last of this year’s flowers for your garden journal, but also for your own enjoyment later. The winter is long and dark, and you’ll be glad to have some pictures of your lush garden.

9 Garden Tasks You Should Always Do Before A Frost Hits by Andy Wilcox | Better Homes & Gardens