Hancock County, in Maine, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
The conditions favor cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Hancock County lies within the Down East Maine — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Hancock County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Hancock County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Hancock County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Hancock County — the short answer
Hancock County, Maine: USDA zone 5b, about 188 days between hard freezes, across 1.0M acres.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~188
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 1.0M acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 5b is Hancock County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hancock County's 188-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Hancock County
Across a year, Hancock County accumulates about 1,767 growing degree days above 50°F, about 9 more than the middle Maine county — ahead of 8 of Maine’s 16 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Hancock County
Across Hancock County, the ground is predominantly Spodosols, where Peru, Colonel, and Brayton are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.4–5.0, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Spodosols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
2%
Hydric soils
27%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Hancock County
The USDA soil survey maps 15% of Hancock County as well drained — but another 63% drains differently: 15% poorly drained, 13% somewhat excessively drained.
Peru is the most extensive named soil at 14% of mapped acres, then Colonel (9%) and Brayton (9%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Hancock County
Each reading below is measured for Hancock County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Hancock County are well drained, in hydrologic group D — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Hancock County runs about pH 4.4–5.0, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 27% of Hancock County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredHancock County runs about 188 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
The kind of country Hancock County is in
Hancock County sits in the Acadian Plains and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Hancock County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Hancock County's own USDA zone 5b and its own 188-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Maine profile.
Is it too late to plant in Hancock County?
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 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 23 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
Documented around Hancock County
Spotted lanternfly documented 26 miles from Hancock County, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle26 documented records
- monarch butterfly127 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Hancock County
USGS estimates 47 lb of Glyphosate on Hancock County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Chlorpyrifos (45 lb) and Carbaryl (30 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Hancock County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Hancock County — 625 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 7 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Hancock County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Hancock County
Closest first, across Hancock County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- S&G WELL OW 27-2Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- CROBB BOX COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- RTWB LLC/JASPER WYMAN & SONToxics Release Inventory · 1.0 mi
- IRVING OIL CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- CONSOLIDATED COMMUNICATIONS OF NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND COMPANY, LLCBrownfields · 1.7 mi
- ME DEPT OF TRANSPORTATIONBrownfields · 1.7 mi
- NEW ENGLAND TELEPHONEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- MAINE COAST MEMORIAL HOSPITALBrownfields · 2.5 mi
- ELLSWORTH MARKETPLACEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- DOWNEAST KITCHEN DESIGNBrownfields · 2.7 mi
- ADVANCE AUTO PARTS # 102031Brownfields · 2.8 mi
- ELLSWORTH COLLISION & SERVICE CENTER, INCBrownfields · 2.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hancock County'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 Hancock County.
Sources Checked
across Hancock County
Severity Distribution
across Hancock County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hancock County, Mining runs higher than the national average — 188 sites across Hancock County. 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.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Hancock County
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 Hancock County average
Your land is one point inside Hancock County
Everything above resolves to Hancock County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 1.0M 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Hancock County Average
Hancock County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Hancock County
- ●One soil character for all of Hancock County
- ●Frost dates read at Hancock County's scale: Apr 18 to Oct 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hancock County's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Hancock County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hancock County, Maine — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hancock County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hancock County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hancock County average
How we know this about Hancock County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Hancock County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Hancock County
When does frost risk typically end in Hancock County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hancock County typically lands around Apr 18, 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 9.
How long is the growing season in Hancock County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hancock County sees about 188 frost-free days — roughly Apr 18 through Oct 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 9 to Oct 9, about 153 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hancock County?
The federal record around Hancock County runs heavier than most — 625 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (264), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.9 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.
Everything above is measured at Hancock County's scale — its 5b band and its 188-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hancock County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Maine's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Hancock County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Hancock County's own scale — its own ~188-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 625 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hancock County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hancock County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~188-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Hancock CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 625 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 0.9 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Hancock County's boundary and the 1,015,796 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~188-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Hancock County sitting wholly inside the Acadian Plains and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Hancock County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Hancock County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Maine grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Maine
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Hancock County — the ~188 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Hancock County's 1,015,796 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 625 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Hancock Countyread your own land →