Cousins Island, Maine, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
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 Cousins Island, 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 Cousins Island 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 Cousins Island — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cousins Island — the short answer
Cousins Island, Maine: USDA zone 6a, about 210 days between hard freezes, across 679 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 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~210
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 679 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 Cousins Island's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cousins Island's 210-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cousins Island
Each reading below is measured for Cousins Island itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCousins Island runs about 210 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
MeasuredCousins Island 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 Cousins Island is in
Cousins Island sits in the Acadian Plains and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Cousins Island's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Cumberland County is mostly Northeastern Coastal Zone. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Cousins Island
Every plant below cleared Cousins Island's own zone 6a and its 210-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maine profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cousins Island?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. 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 6 — 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 Cousins Island
Survey cells within 31 miles of Cousins Island checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 57 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Cousins Island
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cousins Island. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- JOHN G GIBSON INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- WILLIAM F WYMAN STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- F P L ENERGY WYMAN LLC (WF WYMAN STATION)Toxics Release Inventory · 1.2 mi
- F P L ENERGY WYMAN LLC (WF WYMAN STATION)Brownfields · 1.2 mi
- SWEETSER & CLINE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- HARBOR SEWAGE PUMPING STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- ROYAL RIVER BOAT REPAIRUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- YANKEE MARINA INCBrownfields · 2.5 mi
- BICKFORD TRANSPORTATION INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- YARMOUTH BOAT YARDBrownfields · 2.6 mi
- YARMOUTH TOWN HALLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
- CASCO BAY MOTORSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cousins Island'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 Cousins Island.
Total Sites
473
within ~10 miles of Cousins Island
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
8 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cousins Island
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cousins Island
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cousins Island, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 8 sites within ~10 miles of Cousins Island. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Cousins Island
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 Cousins Island average
Your land is one point inside Cousins Island
Everything above resolves to Cousins Island as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 679 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 Cousins Island Average
Cousins Island Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Cousins Island
- ●One soil character for all of Cousins Island
- ●Frost dates read at Cousins Island's scale: Apr 10 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cousins Island's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cousins Island
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cousins Island, Maine — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cousins Island averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cousins Island — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cousins Island average
How we know this about Cousins Island
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 Cousins Island’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 Cousins Island
When does frost risk typically end in Cousins Island?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cousins Island 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 Cousins Island?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cousins Island typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 210 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cousins Island?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cousins Island sees about 210 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 23, about 175 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cousins Island?
The federal record around Cousins Island is a meaningful one — 473 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (288), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Cousins Island?
From about Oct 7 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cousins Island's scale — its 6a band and its 210-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cousins Island'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 Cousins Island’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Cousins Island's own scale — its own ~210-day season between 28°F freezes, the 679 acres it covers and 473 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cousins Island's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cousins Island's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Nov 6 and the ~210-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 473 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cousins Island, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cousins Island's boundary and the 679 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~210-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Cousins Island sits in the Acadian Plains and Hills — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Cousins Island 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 Cousins Island's 679 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cumberland County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cumberland 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 Cumberland County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cousins Island's 679 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cousins Island you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 679 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Cousins Island-wide figureread your own land →