Personally I dont wait till it frosts. Simply because as the tricomes freeze it dont take much for them to degrade and fall of the plant. I may be wrong but personally I really like what I get out of it even tho the buds dont get as big because the plant doesn't think its dying to push all its...
When it comes to readiness you really need a jeweler's loop. You wanna harvest when most of your tricomes are milky white. Lots of people like to wait until their is a 60 40 split in them between milky and amber. I find that that kinda changes the buzz. My preference is a 90% milky and 10%...