Naugatuck, Connecticut, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Naugatuck, 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 Naugatuck 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 Naugatuck — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Naugatuck — the short answer
Naugatuck, Connecticut: USDA zone 6b, about 206 days between hard freezes, across 10K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~206
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 10K 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 Naugatuck's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Naugatuck's 206-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Naugatuck
Each reading below is measured for Naugatuck itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNaugatuck runs about 206 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
MeasuredNaugatuck 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 Naugatuck is in
Naugatuck sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Naugatuck's own centroid rather than borrowed from Naugatuck Valley Planning Region.
What Grows in Naugatuck
Every plant below cleared Naugatuck's own zone 6b and its 206-day season. Each card opens that plant's Connecticut profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Naugatuck?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — 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 Naugatuck
Spotted lanternfly documented 6 miles from Naugatuck, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Naugatuck
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Naugatuck. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CTWC - NAUGATUCK REGION-CENTRAL SYSTEMPFAS · 300 ft
- CT-NA 29Nitrate · 950 ft
- GENERAL DATACOMM, INCBrownfields · 1100 ft
- MXI ENV HHHWCBrownfields · 1100 ft
- R.J. GUERRERA, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- HOTCHKISS HOLDING INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- M & I RUBBER AVE CITGOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- SARRACCO, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- Lanxess Solutions US Inc (formally: Chemtura USA Corporation)Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- CHARLES F. CLARK (FORMER)Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- DECARLO AUTOMOTIVEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- THURSTON'SUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Naugatuck'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 Naugatuck.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Naugatuck
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Naugatuck
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Naugatuck, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Naugatuck — Superfund (46 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (156 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Naugatuck
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 Naugatuck average
Your land is one point inside Naugatuck
Everything above resolves to Naugatuck as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 10K 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 Naugatuck Average
Naugatuck Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Naugatuck
- ●One soil character for all of Naugatuck
- ●Frost dates read at Naugatuck's scale: Apr 8 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Naugatuck's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Naugatuck
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Naugatuck, Connecticut — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Naugatuck averages can't show:
We read public map data around Naugatuck — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Naugatuck average
How we know this about Naugatuck
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 Naugatuck’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 Naugatuck
When does frost risk typically end in Naugatuck?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Naugatuck typically lands around Apr 8, 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 29.
When is the first frost in Naugatuck?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Naugatuck typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 206 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Naugatuck?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Naugatuck sees about 206 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 17, about 171 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Naugatuck?
The federal record around Naugatuck runs heavier than most — 1,810 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (828), the nearest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile 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 Naugatuck?
From about Oct 1 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 Oct 31 (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 Oct 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Naugatuck's scale — its 6b band and its 206-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Naugatuck'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 Naugatuck’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Naugatuck's own scale — its own ~206-day season between 28°F freezes, the 10,486 acres it covers and 1,810 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Naugatuck's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Naugatuck's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 8 and Oct 31 and the ~206-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,810 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Naugatuck, the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Naugatuck's boundary and the 10,486 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~206-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Naugatuck's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Naugatucklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Naugatuck's 10,486 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Naugatuck Valley County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Naugatuck Valley 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 Naugatuck Valley County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Naugatuck's 10,486 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Naugatuck you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 10,486 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile 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 Naugatuck-wide figureread your own land →
More in Connecticut
Wider growing context
What grows across ConnecticutNaugatuck sits outside our named growing regions, so Connecticut as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides