Mamanasco Lake, Connecticut, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Mamanasco Lake, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Mamanasco Lake lot. Enter your address and we'll score 1,086 plants against your land's actual soil, sun, and frost.
We read public map data around Mamanasco Lake — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Mamanasco Lake — the short answer
Mamanasco Lake, Connecticut: USDA zone 6b, about 208 days between hard freezes, across 262 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~208
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 262 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 28°F normals: light frosts run a few weeks past them, and tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks after the last hard freeze.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 6b is Mamanasco Lake's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mamanasco Lake's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Mamanasco Lake
Each reading below is measured for Mamanasco Lake itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMamanasco Lake runs about 208 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredMamanasco Lake sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
The zone sets which perennials, shrubs, and fruit trees live through an average winter here — a plant rated for a colder zone is a safe bet, one rated warmer needs winter protection or gets treated as an annual.
Match perennials and fruit to the zone before you buy, so nothing you plant is a gamble against the cold.
USDA PHZM 2023
The kind of country Mamanasco Lake is in
Mamanasco Lake sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Mamanasco Lake's own centroid rather than borrowed from Western Connecticut Planning Region.
What Grows in Mamanasco Lake
Every plant below cleared Mamanasco Lake's own zone 6b and its 208-day season. Each card opens that plant's Connecticut profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Mamanasco Lake?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 1 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Mamanasco Lake
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Mamanasco Lake, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Mamanasco Lake
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Mamanasco Lake. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CT-R 60Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- CT-R 65Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- CT-R 61Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- CT-R 63Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- CT-R 62Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- CT-R 64Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- CT-R 52Nitrate · 1.3 mi
- RIDGEFIELD ACADEMYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- AQUARION WATER CO OF CT-RIDGEFIELD SYSPFAS · 1.6 mi
- RESIDENCE -HARVEY FIERSTEINUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- LAWRENCE A. BOSSIDYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- CT-R 4Nitrate · 1.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mamanasco Lake's center, not your beds. Run your own address for what's upwind of you specifically.
Environmental Intelligence
The counts behind that headline — every source type on the record near Mamanasco Lake.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Mamanasco Lake
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Mamanasco Lake
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mamanasco Lake, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Mamanasco Lake — PFAS (10 sites) and Superfund (14 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Mamanasco Lake
Get exact proximity distances to contamination sources for your specific parcel — plus soil, sun, drainage, and 1,086 plant recommendations.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mamanasco Lake average
Your land is one point inside Mamanasco Lake
Everything above resolves to Mamanasco Lake as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 262 acres. Your parcel is one point inside that footprint. Slope, tree cover, a low spot that pools cold air, and what is in the soil are all resolved at the address, and none of them are visible at town scale. That is the honest boundary of this page, and the reason the next step is a reading of your own ground rather than a better local average.
Your Lot vs the Mamanasco Lake Average
Mamanasco Lake Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Mamanasco Lake
- ●One soil character for all of Mamanasco Lake
- ●Frost dates read at Mamanasco Lake's scale: Apr 7 to Nov 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mamanasco Lake's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Mamanasco Lake
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mamanasco Lake, Connecticut — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mamanasco Lake averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mamanasco Lake — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mamanasco Lake average
How we know this about Mamanasco Lake
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Mamanasco Lake’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Mamanasco Lake
When does frost risk typically end in Mamanasco Lake?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mamanasco Lake typically lands around Apr 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — earlier than the light-frost dates most charts quote. That marks the hard freeze, not the last light frost — lighter frosts keep biting past it, which is why tender transplants here wait until about Apr 28.
When is the first frost in Mamanasco Lake?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Mamanasco Lake typically arrives around Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 18, so the watching starts about Oct 2 — about 208 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Mamanasco Lake?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mamanasco Lake sees about 208 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 18, about 173 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mamanasco Lake?
The federal record around Mamanasco Lake runs heavier than most — 982 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (404), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.7 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Mamanasco Lake?
From about Oct 2 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 1. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Mamanasco Lake's scale — its 6b band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mamanasco Lake's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Mamanasco Lake’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Mamanasco Lake's own scale — its own ~208-day season between 28°F freezes, the 262 acres it covers and 982 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mamanasco Lake's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mamanasco Lake's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Nov 1 and the ~208-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 982 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Mamanasco Lake, the closest Nitrate record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Mamanasco Lake's boundary and the 262 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~208-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Mamanasco Lake's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Mamanasco Lakelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Mamanasco Lake's 262 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Western Connecticut County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Western Connecticut County
- The growing challenges every Connecticut grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Connecticut
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Western Connecticut County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Mamanasco Lake's 262 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Mamanasco Lake you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 262 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.7 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Mamanasco Lake-wide figureread your own land →
More in Connecticut
Wider growing context
What grows across ConnecticutMamanasco Lake sits outside our named growing regions, so Connecticut as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides