Fort Fairfield, Maine, sits in USDA hardiness zone 4a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
On paper, cabbage, cranberry, turkish rocket, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Fort Fairfield, 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 Fort Fairfield 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 Fort Fairfield — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Fort Fairfield — the short answer
Fort Fairfield, Maine: USDA zone 4a, about 160 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 4a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~160
- 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 4a is Fort Fairfield's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Fort Fairfield's 160-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Fort Fairfield
Each reading below is measured for Fort Fairfield itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFort Fairfield runs about 160 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
Winter hardiness
MeasuredFort Fairfield sits in USDA hardiness zone 4a.
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 Fort Fairfield is in
Fort Fairfield sits in the Acadian Plains and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Fort Fairfield's own centroid rather than borrowed from Aroostook County.
What Grows in Fort Fairfield
Every plant below cleared Fort Fairfield's own zone 4a and its 160-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maine profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Fort Fairfield?
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 Apr 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 9 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
What's on the federal record near Fort Fairfield
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Fort Fairfield. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FORT FAIRFIELD MIDDLE SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- NORTHEAST MOTOR CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- FORT FAIRFIELD EXXONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- REED FARMS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- FOX, JEFFREYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- GOOD, DAVIDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- PETERSONS MOTOR MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- FORT FAIRFIELD 24 HR GASUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- ADVANCE AUTO PARTS #3488Brownfields · 1800 ft
- FORT ONE STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- ON THE RUN-FORT FAIRFIELDBrownfields · 1900 ft
- IRVING FORT FAIRFIELD MAINWAYBrownfields · 1900 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Fort Fairfield'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 Fort Fairfield.
Total Sites
152
within ~10 miles of Fort Fairfield
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Fort Fairfield
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Fort Fairfield
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Fort Fairfield, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 107 sites within ~10 miles of Fort Fairfield. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Fort Fairfield
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 Fort Fairfield average
Your land is one point inside Fort Fairfield
Everything above resolves to Fort Fairfield 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 Fort Fairfield Average
Fort Fairfield Average
- ●USDA Zones 4a, averaged across Fort Fairfield
- ●One soil character for all of Fort Fairfield
- ●Frost dates read at Fort Fairfield's scale: May 2 to Oct 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Fort Fairfield's 4a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Fort Fairfield
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Fort Fairfield, Maine — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Fort Fairfield averages can't show:
We read public map data around Fort Fairfield — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Fort Fairfield average
How we know this about Fort Fairfield
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 Fort Fairfield’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 Fort Fairfield
When does frost risk typically end in Fort Fairfield?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Fort Fairfield typically lands around May 2, 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 23.
When is the first frost in Fort Fairfield?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Fort Fairfield typically arrives around Oct 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Sep 25, so the watching starts about Sep 9 — about 160 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Fort Fairfield?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Fort Fairfield sees about 160 frost-free days — roughly May 2 through Oct 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 23 to Sep 25, about 125 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Fort Fairfield?
The federal record around Fort Fairfield is a meaningful one — 152 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (107), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Fort Fairfield?
From about Sep 9 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 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 Oct 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Fort Fairfield's scale — its 4a band and its 160-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Fort Fairfield'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 Fort Fairfield’s own scale
6 of the readings below were taken at Fort Fairfield's own scale — its own ~160-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,874 acres it covers and 152 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Fort Fairfield's own USDA hardiness band, zones 4aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Fort Fairfield's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about May 2 and Oct 9 and the ~160-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 152 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Fort Fairfield, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Fort Fairfield's boundary and the 1,874 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 4a and a ~160-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Fort Fairfield's own centroid, the Acadian Plains and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Fort Fairfield's 1,874 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Aroostook County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Aroostook 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 Aroostook County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Fort Fairfield's 1,874 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Fort Fairfield you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,874 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 Fort Fairfield-wide figureread your own land →
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