Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own 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 Buzzards Bay, 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 Buzzards Bay 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 Buzzards Bay — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Buzzards Bay — the short answer
Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts: USDA zone 7a, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- 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 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 7a is Buzzards Bay's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Buzzards Bay's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Buzzards Bay
Each reading below is measured for Buzzards Bay itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBuzzards Bay runs about 218 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
MeasuredBuzzards Bay sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Buzzards Bay is in
Buzzards Bay sits in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Buzzards Bay's own centroid rather than borrowed from Barnstable County.
What Grows in Buzzards Bay
Every plant below cleared Buzzards Bay's own zone 7a and its 218-day season. Each card opens that plant's Massachusetts profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Buzzards Bay?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. 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 8 — 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 Buzzards Bay
Spotted lanternfly documented 10 miles from Buzzards Bay, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Buzzards Bay
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Buzzards Bay. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DBA CAPEWAY CLEANERSBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- CHESTNUTS CONVENIENCE STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- ASTRO ENERGY CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- BAY VILLAGE AUTOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- MACO'S BAIT & TACKLE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- TOWN OF BOURNE POLICE DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CONTINENTAL MARINABrownfields · 0.6 mi
- CONTINENTAL MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- BAY COLONY RAILROAD CORPBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- FIVE STAR GOLF CARS AND UTILITY VEHICLES LLCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- TAYLORS POINT MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CUMBERLAND FARMS 2302Brownfields · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Buzzards Bay'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 Buzzards Bay.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Buzzards Bay
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Buzzards Bay
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Buzzards Bay, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 1,790 sites within ~10 miles of Buzzards Bay. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Buzzards Bay
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 Buzzards Bay average
Your land is one point inside Buzzards Bay
Everything above resolves to Buzzards Bay as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Buzzards Bay Average
Buzzards Bay Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Buzzards Bay
- ●One soil character for all of Buzzards Bay
- ●Frost dates read at Buzzards Bay's scale: Apr 4 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Buzzards Bay's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Buzzards Bay
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Buzzards Bay averages can't show:
We read public map data around Buzzards Bay — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Buzzards Bay average
How we know this about Buzzards Bay
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 Buzzards Bay’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 Buzzards Bay
When does frost risk typically end in Buzzards Bay?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Buzzards Bay 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 Buzzards Bay?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Buzzards Bay typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 218 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Buzzards Bay?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Buzzards Bay sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 25, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Buzzards Bay?
The federal record around Buzzards Bay is a meaningful one — 2,344 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (1,790), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 Buzzards Bay?
From about Oct 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 Nov 8 (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 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Buzzards Bay's scale — its 7a band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Buzzards Bay'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 Buzzards Bay’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Buzzards Bay's own scale — its own ~218-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,226 acres it covers and 2,344 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Buzzards Bay's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Buzzards Bay's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Nov 8 and the ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,344 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Buzzards Bay, the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Buzzards Bay's boundary and the 1,226 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Buzzards Bay's own centroid, the Atlantic Coastal Pine BarrensUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Buzzards Baylydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Buzzards Bay's 1,226 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 Buzzards Bay's 1,226 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Buzzards Bay you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,226 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 Buzzards Bay-wide figureread your own land →