Hallowell, Maine, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Hallowell, 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 Hallowell 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 Hallowell — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Hallowell — the short answer
Hallowell, Maine: USDA zone 5b, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 5b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 4K 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 5b is Hallowell's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hallowell's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Hallowell
Each reading below is measured for Hallowell itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHallowell runs about 200 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
MeasuredHallowell sits in USDA hardiness zone 5b.
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 Hallowell is in
Hallowell sits in the Acadian Plains and Hills — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Hallowell's own centroid rather than borrowed from Kennebec County.
What Grows in Hallowell
Every plant below cleared Hallowell's own zone 5b and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maine profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Hallowell?
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 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 30 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Hallowell
Spotted lanternfly documented 30 miles from Hallowell, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Hallowell
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Hallowell. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- AUGUSTA TANK & CULVERTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- MCNAUGHTON BROTHERS CONSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- CONTRACTORS GROUPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CLARKS CARS & PARTSBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- RSU # 2 CENTRAL OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- US GEOLOGICAL SURVEY - NEW ENGLAND WATER SCIENCE CENTERBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- FIDOS MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- SUNOCO STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- WINGATE LATHE OILUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- FEDEX EXPRESS (AUGA)Brownfields · 1.4 mi
- WOODS END LABORATORIESBrownfields · 1.5 mi
- BARRETT, RICHARDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hallowell'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 Hallowell.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Hallowell
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Hallowell
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 Hallowell
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 Hallowell average
Your land is one point inside Hallowell
Everything above resolves to Hallowell as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 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 Hallowell Average
Hallowell Average
- ●USDA Zones 5b, averaged across Hallowell
- ●One soil character for all of Hallowell
- ●Frost dates read at Hallowell's scale: Apr 13 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hallowell's 5b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Hallowell
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hallowell, Maine — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hallowell averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hallowell — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hallowell average
How we know this about Hallowell
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 Hallowell’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 Hallowell
When does frost risk typically end in Hallowell?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hallowell typically lands around Apr 13, 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 4.
When is the first frost in Hallowell?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Hallowell typically arrives around Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 16, so the watching starts about Sep 30 — about 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Hallowell?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hallowell sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 13 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 4 to Oct 16, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hallowell?
The federal record around Hallowell is a meaningful one — 488 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (290), 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 Hallowell?
From about Sep 30 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 30 (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 30. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Hallowell's scale — its 5b band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hallowell'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 Hallowell’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Hallowell's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,753 acres it covers and 488 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hallowell's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hallowell's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 13 and Oct 30 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 488 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Hallowell, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Hallowell's boundary and the 3,753 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5b and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Hallowell's own centroid, the Acadian Plains and HillsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Hallowelllydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Hallowell's 3,753 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Kennebec County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Kennebec 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 Kennebec County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Hallowell's 3,753 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Hallowell you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,753 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 Hallowell-wide figureread your own land →
More in Maine
Growing region
Nearby growing guides