Wallingford Center, Connecticut, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Wallingford Center, 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 Wallingford Center 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 Wallingford Center — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Wallingford Center — the short answer
Wallingford Center, Connecticut: USDA zone 6b, about 209 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- 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
- ~209
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 5K 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 Wallingford Center's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Wallingford Center's 209-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Wallingford Center
Each reading below is measured for Wallingford Center itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWallingford Center runs about 209 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
MeasuredWallingford Center 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 Wallingford Center is in
Wallingford Center sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Wallingford Center's own centroid rather than borrowed from South Central Connecticut Planning Region.
What Grows in Wallingford Center
Every plant below cleared Wallingford Center's own zone 6b and its 209-day season. Each card opens that plant's Connecticut profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Wallingford Center?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (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. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Wallingford Center
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Wallingford Center, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Wallingford Center
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Wallingford Center. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- M. BACKES & SONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- UNITED STATES POST OFFICE WALLINGFORDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- 398 Center Street, LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- MIDAS MUFFLER SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- SUPER SALES INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- K - MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- LEE MANUFACTURINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- COLONY LUMBER CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- ARCHBOLD INFIRMARYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- PRESTIGE OLDSMOBILEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- 927 N COLONY RDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- LAUNDRYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Wallingford Center'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 Wallingford Center.
Total Sites
1,687
within ~10 miles of Wallingford Center
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
24 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Wallingford Center
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Wallingford Center
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Wallingford Center, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Wallingford Center — Toxics Release Inventory (125 sites) and Superfund (24 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Wallingford Center
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 Wallingford Center average
Your land is one point inside Wallingford Center
Everything above resolves to Wallingford Center as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 5K 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 Wallingford Center Average
Wallingford Center Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Wallingford Center
- ●One soil character for all of Wallingford Center
- ●Frost dates read at Wallingford Center's scale: Apr 5 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Wallingford Center's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Wallingford Center
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Wallingford Center, Connecticut — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Wallingford Center averages can't show:
We read public map data around Wallingford Center — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Wallingford Center average
How we know this about Wallingford Center
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 Wallingford Center’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 Wallingford Center
When does frost risk typically end in Wallingford Center?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Wallingford Center typically lands around Apr 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in Wallingford Center?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Wallingford Center 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 209 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Wallingford Center?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Wallingford Center sees about 209 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 17, about 174 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Wallingford Center?
The federal record around Wallingford Center runs heavier than most — 1,687 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (766), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Wallingford Center?
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 Wallingford Center's scale — its 6b band and its 209-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Wallingford Center'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 Wallingford Center’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Wallingford Center's own scale — its own ~209-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,645 acres it covers and 1,687 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Wallingford Center's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Wallingford Center's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Oct 31 and the ~209-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,687 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Wallingford Center, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Wallingford Center's boundary and the 4,645 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~209-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Wallingford Center's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Wallingford Centerlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Wallingford Center's 4,645 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom South Central Connecticut County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom South Central 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 South Central Connecticut County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Wallingford Center's 4,645 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Wallingford Center you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,645 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Wallingford Center-wide figureread your own land →
More in Connecticut
Wider growing context
What grows across ConnecticutWallingford Center sits outside our named growing regions, so Connecticut as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides