Braintree, Massachusetts, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific 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 Braintree, 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 Braintree 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 Braintree — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Braintree — the short answer
Braintree, Massachusetts: USDA zone 6b, about 227 days between hard freezes, across 9K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~227
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 9K 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 Braintree's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Braintree's 227-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Braintree
Each reading below is measured for Braintree itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBraintree runs about 227 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
MeasuredBraintree 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 Braintree is in
Braintree sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Braintree's own centroid rather than borrowed from Norfolk County.
What Grows in Braintree
Every plant below cleared Braintree's own zone 6b and its 227-day season. Each card opens that plant's Massachusetts profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Braintree?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 13 — 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 Braintree
Spotted lanternfly documented 9 miles from Braintree, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Braintree
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Braintree Town. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BRAINTREE WATER AND SEWER DEPT.PFAS · 0 ft
- BRAINTREE AUTO BODY CO INCBrownfields · 300 ft
- MBTA BRAINTREE TRACTION POWER SUBSTATIONBrownfields · 500 ft
- TOWN OF BRAINTREEUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- BRAINTREE TOWN OFBrownfields · 650 ft
- COVANTA CO OF MASS LPBrownfields · 650 ft
- MBTA BRAINTREE GARAGEBrownfields · 650 ft
- WEST MARINE # 1316 BRAINTREEBrownfields · 750 ft
- DBA AUTOZONE 5128Brownfields · 800 ft
- SULLIVAN TIREBrownfields · 800 ft
- CUMBERLAND FARMS INCBrownfields · 900 ft
- CUMBERLAND FARMS #2182Underground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Braintree'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 Braintree.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Braintree Town
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Braintree Town
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Braintree, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 2,735 sites within ~10 miles of Braintree Town. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
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 Braintree
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 Braintree average
Your land is one point inside Braintree
Everything above resolves to Braintree as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 9K 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 Braintree Average
Braintree Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Braintree
- ●One soil character for all of Braintree
- ●Frost dates read at Braintree's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 13
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Braintree's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Braintree
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Braintree, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Braintree averages can't show:
We read public map data around Braintree — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Braintree average
How we know this about Braintree
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 Braintree’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 Braintree
When does frost risk typically end in Braintree?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Braintree typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
When is the first frost in Braintree?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Braintree typically arrives around Nov 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 30, so the watching starts about Oct 14 — about 227 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Braintree?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Braintree sees about 227 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 30, about 192 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Braintree?
The federal record around Braintree runs heavier than most — 4,147 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (2,735), 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 Braintree?
From about Oct 14 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 13 (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 13. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Braintree's scale — its 6b band and its 227-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Braintree'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 Braintree’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Braintree's own scale — its own ~227-day season between 28°F freezes, the 8,808 acres it covers and 4,147 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Braintree's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Braintree's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 13 and the ~227-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 4,147 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Braintree, the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Braintree's boundary and the 8,808 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~227-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Braintree's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Braintreelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Braintree's 8,808 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Norfolk County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Norfolk 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 Norfolk County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Braintree's 8,808 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Braintree you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 8,808 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 Braintree-wide figureread your own land →
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