Brewster, Massachusetts, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — 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, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
You’re in Cape Cod & the Islands
A sandy, sea-wrapped peninsula and islands with the state's warmest, longest season — and its most maritime one. Acidic soils long worked for cranberries and beach plums; wind and salt are the constant neighbors of every garden.
Even in Brewster, 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 Brewster 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 Brewster — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Brewster — the short answer
Brewster, Massachusetts: USDA zone 7b, about 239 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~239
- 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 7b is Brewster's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Brewster's 239-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Brewster
Each reading below is measured for Brewster itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBrewster runs about 239 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
MeasuredBrewster sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Brewster is in
Brewster sits in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Brewster's own centroid rather than borrowed from Barnstable County.
What Grows in Brewster
Every plant below cleared Brewster's own zone 7b and its 239-day season. Each card opens that plant's Massachusetts profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Brewster?
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 Feb 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 22 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Brewster
Spotted lanternfly documented 17 miles from Brewster, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Brewster
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Brewster. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ROBERT B DRUMMOND DBA BREWSTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- AMBROSE HOMES INC SHOP OFFICEBrownfields · 1500 ft
- DE CAR CLASSICSBrownfields · 1500 ft
- DONS AUTO COSMETICS INCBrownfields · 1700 ft
- Global Montello Group #1534Underground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- MOBIL 2534Brownfields · 1900 ft
- MAZDA CAPE CODBrownfields · 2100 ft
- SHAWS 3692Brownfields · 2300 ft
- PHILIP C TUBMANUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- CUMBERLAND FARMS #2136Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- OCEAN EDGE RESORT AND GOLF CLUB AGRONOMY BUILDINGBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- CUMBERLAND FARMS 2322Brownfields · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Brewster'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 Brewster.
Total Sites
751
within ~10 miles of Brewster
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Brewster
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Brewster
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Brewster, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 350 sites within ~10 miles of Brewster. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Brewster
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 Brewster average
Your land is one point inside Brewster
Everything above resolves to Brewster 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 Brewster Average
Brewster Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Brewster
- ●One soil character for all of Brewster
- ●Frost dates read at Brewster's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Brewster's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Brewster
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Brewster, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Brewster averages can't show:
We read public map data around Brewster — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Brewster average
How we know this about Brewster
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 Brewster’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 Brewster
When does frost risk typically end in Brewster?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Brewster typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Brewster?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Brewster typically arrives around Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 8, so the watching starts about Oct 23 — about 239 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Brewster?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Brewster sees about 239 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Nov 8, about 204 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Brewster?
The federal record around Brewster is a meaningful one — 751 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (350), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Brewster?
From about Oct 23 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 22 (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 22. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Brewster's scale — its 7b band and its 239-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Brewster'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 Brewster’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Brewster's own scale — its own ~239-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,494 acres it covers and 751 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Brewster's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Brewster's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 22 and the ~239-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 751 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Brewster, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Brewster's boundary and the 2,494 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~239-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Brewster's own centroid, the Atlantic Coastal Pine BarrensUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Brewsterlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Brewster's 2,494 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Barnstable County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Barnstable 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 Barnstable County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Brewster's 2,494 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Brewster you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,494 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Brewster-wide figureread your own land →