Biddeford, Maine, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
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 Biddeford, 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 Biddeford 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 Biddeford — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Biddeford — the short answer
Biddeford, Maine: USDA zone 6a, about 206 days between hard freezes, across 19K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~206
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 19K 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 Biddeford's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Biddeford's 206-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Your town runs its own season
Biddeford's own 30-year record measures about 206 days between 28°F killing freezes — 40 days longer than York County's ~166. Both are measured records, not estimates.
That gap is the whole reason a county average can mislead here. Plant against Biddeford's ~206-day season rather than the county figure — and the sun, slope and cold-air drainage on your specific lot move it again.
NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS (1991–2020), 30-year daily minimum record. Both figures are measured records — this town’s own and its county’s. A town with no record of its own is absent here rather than estimated.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Biddeford
Each reading below is measured for Biddeford itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBiddeford 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
MeasuredBiddeford 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 Biddeford is in
Biddeford sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Biddeford's own centroid rather than borrowed from York County.
What Grows in Biddeford
Every plant below cleared Biddeford's own zone 6a and its 206-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maine profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Biddeford?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 3 — 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 Biddeford
Survey cells within 31 miles of Biddeford checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 44 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Biddeford
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Biddeford. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WEST ST MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- ME-YW862 HHID 070 HETLID B026999 RECRUITID 110Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- BROOKFIELD FACILITY - SKELTONBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- UNIVERSITY OF NEW ENGLAND - CREATIVE ARTSBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- UNE MARINE SCIENCE & RESEARCHBrownfields · 1.4 mi
- UNIVERSITY OF NEW ENGLANDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- SEASTAR MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- SANBORN, MAJORIE MUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- DAY ENTERPRISESUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- SAINT JOSEPHS CEMETERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- ABENAKEE CLUBUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- BIDDEFORD POOL VOL FIRE DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Biddeford'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 Biddeford.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Biddeford
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Biddeford
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Biddeford
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 Biddeford average
Your land is one point inside Biddeford
Everything above resolves to Biddeford as a whole — and this is a city whose own 30-year record already runs a season its county’s does not. Your parcel sits at one point inside even that. 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 city 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 Biddeford Average
Biddeford Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Biddeford
- ●One soil character for all of Biddeford
- ●Frost dates read at Biddeford's scale: Apr 11 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Biddeford's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Biddeford
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Biddeford, Maine — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Biddeford averages can't show:
We read public map data around Biddeford — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Biddeford average
How we know this about Biddeford
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Biddeford’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Biddeford
When does frost risk typically end in Biddeford?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Biddeford typically lands around Apr 11, 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 2.
When is the first frost in Biddeford?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Biddeford typically arrives around Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 20, so the watching starts about Oct 4 — about 206 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Biddeford?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Biddeford sees about 206 frost-free days — roughly Apr 11 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 2 to Oct 20, about 171 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Biddeford?
The federal record around Biddeford is a meaningful one — 383 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (200), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 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 Biddeford?
From about Oct 4 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 3 (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 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Biddeford's scale — its 6a band and its 206-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Biddeford'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 Biddeford’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Biddeford's own scale — its own ~206-day season between 28°F freezes, the 19,254 acres it covers and 383 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Biddeford's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Biddeford's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 11 and Nov 3 and the ~206-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 383 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Biddeford, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Biddeford's boundary and the 19,254 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~206-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Biddeford's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Biddeford 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 Biddeford's 19,254 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom York County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom York 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 York County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Biddeford's 19,254 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Biddeford you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 19,254 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Biddeford-wide figureread your own land →
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