Bar Harbor, Maine, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Bar Harbor, 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 Bar Harbor 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 Bar Harbor — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Bar Harbor — the short answer
Bar Harbor, Maine: USDA zone 6a, about 213 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~213
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 6a is Bar Harbor's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bar Harbor's 213-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bar Harbor
Each reading below is measured for Bar Harbor itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBar Harbor runs about 213 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
MeasuredBar Harbor sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Bar Harbor is in
Bar Harbor sits in the Acadian Plains and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bar Harbor's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hancock County.
What Grows in Bar Harbor
Every plant below cleared Bar Harbor's own zone 6a and its 213-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maine profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bar Harbor?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 9 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Bar Harbor
Survey cells within 31 miles of Bar Harbor checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 41 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Bar Harbor
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bar Harbor. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BAR HARBOR TOWN GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- A B & J R HODGKINS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- MALVERN BELMONT ESTATESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- FAIRPOINT COMMUNICATIONSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- OLD SCHOOL BUS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- MAIN STREET MKT & GRILLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- TAPLEYS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- FIRST EXPRESSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- MORANG ROBINSON AUTO COUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- MOUNT DESERT ISLAND HOSPITALBrownfields · 2600 ft
- STEWART, LIONEL LUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- BAR HARBOR EXXONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bar Harbor'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 Bar Harbor.
Total Sites
168
within ~10 miles of Bar Harbor
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bar Harbor
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bar Harbor
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bar Harbor, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Bar Harbor — Mining (21 sites) and Superfund (3 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Bar Harbor
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 Bar Harbor average
Your land is one point inside Bar Harbor
Everything above resolves to Bar Harbor as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Bar Harbor Average
Bar Harbor Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Bar Harbor
- ●One soil character for all of Bar Harbor
- ●Frost dates read at Bar Harbor's scale: Apr 10 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bar Harbor's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bar Harbor
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bar Harbor, Maine — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bar Harbor averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bar Harbor — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bar Harbor average
How we know this about Bar Harbor
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 Bar Harbor’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 Bar Harbor
When does frost risk typically end in Bar Harbor?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bar Harbor typically lands around Apr 10, 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 May 1.
When is the first frost in Bar Harbor?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bar Harbor typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 213 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bar Harbor?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bar Harbor sees about 213 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 26, about 178 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bar Harbor?
The federal record around Bar Harbor is a meaningful one — 168 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (88), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Bar Harbor?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bar Harbor's scale — its 6a band and its 213-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bar Harbor'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 Bar Harbor’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Bar Harbor's own scale — its own ~213-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,032 acres it covers and 168 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bar Harbor's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bar Harbor's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Nov 9 and the ~213-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 168 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bar Harbor, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bar Harbor's boundary and the 2,032 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~213-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bar Harbor's own centroid, the Acadian Plains and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Bar Harbor checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Bar Harbor's 2,032 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hancock County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hancock County
- The growing challenges every Maine grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Maine
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Hancock County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bar Harbor's 2,032 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bar Harbor you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,032 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Bar Harbor-wide figureread your own land →
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