Cambridge, 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.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
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 Cambridge, 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 Cambridge 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 Cambridge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Cambridge — the short answer
Cambridge, Massachusetts: USDA zone 6b, about 227 days between hard freezes, across 4K 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
- 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 6b is Cambridge's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cambridge's 227-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cambridge
Each reading below is measured for Cambridge itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCambridge 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
MeasuredCambridge 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 Cambridge is in
Cambridge sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Cambridge's own centroid rather than borrowed from Middlesex County.
What Grows in Cambridge
Every plant below cleared Cambridge'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 Cambridge?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. 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. 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 Cambridge
Spotted lanternfly documented 5 miles from Cambridge, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Cambridge
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cambridge. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BOSTON RAIL YARDS CAMBRIDGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- PIEDMONT OPERATING PARTNERSHIP LPBrownfields · 800 ft
- MBTA HARVARD BUSWAY MAINTENANCE PROJECTBrownfields · 800 ft
- HARVARD UNIVERSITY - RADCLIFFE YARDBrownfields · 850 ft
- MA-CAW 406Nitrate · 900 ft
- ASANA PARTNERSBrownfields · 1000 ft
- ORIGINS 701Brownfields · 1000 ft
- CVS PHARMACY 0240Brownfields · 1100 ft
- ANN TAYLOR 1095Brownfields · 1100 ft
- HARVARD UNIVERSITY LOEB DRAMABrownfields · 1100 ft
- FIRE STATION - CAMBRIDGE FIRE DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- HILLSIDE CLEANSERSBrownfields · 1100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cambridge'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 Cambridge.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cambridge
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cambridge
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cambridge, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 5,668 sites within ~10 miles of Cambridge. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Cambridge
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 Cambridge average
Your land is one point inside Cambridge
Everything above resolves to Cambridge 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 Cambridge Average
Cambridge Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Cambridge
- ●One soil character for all of Cambridge
- ●Frost dates read at Cambridge's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 13
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cambridge's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cambridge
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cambridge, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cambridge averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cambridge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cambridge average
How we know this about Cambridge
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 Cambridge’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 Cambridge
When does frost risk typically end in Cambridge?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cambridge 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 Cambridge?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cambridge 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 Cambridge?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cambridge 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 Cambridge?
The federal record around Cambridge runs heavier than most — 7,983 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (5,668), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles 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 Cambridge?
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 Cambridge's scale — its 6b band and its 227-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cambridge'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 Cambridge’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Cambridge's own scale — its own ~227-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,094 acres it covers and 7,983 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cambridge's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cambridge's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 13 and the ~227-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 7,983 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cambridge, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cambridge's boundary and the 4,094 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 Cambridge's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Cambridgelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Cambridge's 4,094 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 Cambridge's 4,094 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cambridge you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,094 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Cambridge-wide figureread your own land →
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