Belmont, Massachusetts, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
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.
You’re in Greater Boston
The state's dense urban core, where growing means raised beds, community plots, and back-lot kitchen gardens more than open field. A long, mild season for the region — but city soil is the thing to know before you dig.
Even in Belmont, 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 Belmont 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 Belmont — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Belmont — the short answer
Belmont, Massachusetts: USDA zone 6b, about 215 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~215
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 6b is Belmont's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Belmont's 215-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Belmont
Each reading below is measured for Belmont itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBelmont runs about 215 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
MeasuredBelmont sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Belmont is in
Belmont sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Belmont's own centroid rather than borrowed from Middlesex County.
What Grows in Belmont
Every plant below cleared Belmont's own zone 6b and its 215-day season. Each card opens that plant's Massachusetts profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Belmont?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — 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 Belmont
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Belmont, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Belmont
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Belmont. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BELMONT WATER DEPT. (MWRA)PFAS · 0 ft
- TOWN OF BELMONT LIGHT DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- BELMONT POLICE DEPARTMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- BELMONT MUNICIPAL LIGHT DEPARTMENT SUBSTATION 1Brownfields · 900 ft
- BELMONT MUNICIPAL LIGHT DEPARTMENT SUBSTATION 1Toxics Release Inventory · 900 ft
- LENNY'S SERVICE CENTERBrownfields · 1100 ft
- LENNY'S SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- COLONIAL CHRYSLER PLYMOUTH JEEP INCBrownfields · 1300 ft
- FORMER EXXON GAS STATIONBrownfields · 1400 ft
- EXXON #3-0966Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- HERITAGE AMC JEEP RENAULTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- FLETT EQUIPMENT CO INCBrownfields · 1700 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Belmont'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 Belmont.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Belmont
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Belmont
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Belmont, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 5,673 sites within ~10 miles of Belmont. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Belmont
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 Belmont average
Your land is one point inside Belmont
Everything above resolves to Belmont as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Belmont Average
Belmont Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Belmont
- ●One soil character for all of Belmont
- ●Frost dates read at Belmont's scale: Apr 4 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Belmont's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Belmont
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Belmont, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Belmont averages can't show:
We read public map data around Belmont — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Belmont average
How we know this about Belmont
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 Belmont’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 Belmont
When does frost risk typically end in Belmont?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Belmont typically lands around Apr 4, 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 Apr 25.
When is the first frost in Belmont?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Belmont typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 215 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Belmont?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Belmont sees about 215 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 22, about 180 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Belmont?
The federal record around Belmont runs heavier than most — 7,978 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (5,673), the nearest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Belmont?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Belmont's scale — its 6b band and its 215-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Belmont'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 Belmont’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Belmont's own scale — its own ~215-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,974 acres it covers and 7,978 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Belmont's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Belmont's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Nov 5 and the ~215-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 7,978 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Belmont, the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Belmont's boundary and the 2,974 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~215-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Belmont's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Belmontlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Belmont's 2,974 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Middlesex County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Middlesex County
- The growing challenges every Massachusetts grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Massachusetts
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Middlesex County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Belmont's 2,974 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Belmont you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,974 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile 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 Belmont-wide figureread your own land →
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