Essex County, in Massachusetts, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
You’re in North Shore
The settled coast north of Boston — salt air, tidy town lots, and sea-tempered winters that hold the cold off a little longer than the hills inland. Wind and salt spray are the near-shore gardener's companions here.
Essex County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Essex County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Essex County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Essex County — the short answer
Essex County, Massachusetts: USDA zone 6b, about 212 days between hard freezes, across 315K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~212
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 315K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 Essex County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Essex County's 212-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Essex County
Across a year, Essex County accumulates about 2,506 growing degree days above 50°F, about 20 fewer than the middle Massachusetts county — ahead of 5 of Massachusetts’s 14 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Essex County
Across Essex County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Canton, Paxton, and Freetown are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.6–5.5, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
12%
Hydric soils
27%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Essex County
The USDA soil survey maps 31% of Essex County as well drained — but another 47% drains differently: 16% very poorly drained, 12% moderately well drained.
Canton is the most extensive named soil at 9% of mapped acres, then Paxton (8%) and Freetown (7%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Essex County
Each reading below is measured for Essex County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Essex County are well drained, in hydrologic group A — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Essex County runs about pH 4.6–5.5, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 27% of Essex County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredEssex County runs about 212 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
The kind of country Essex County is in
Essex County sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Essex County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Essex County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 212-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Massachusetts profile.
Is it too late to plant in Essex County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (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. 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 Essex County
Spotted lanternfly documented 6 miles from Essex County, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle17 documented records
- monarch butterfly769 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Essex County
USGS estimates 803 lb of Glyphosate on Essex County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (709 lb) and Atrazine (515 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Essex County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Essex County — 3,658 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 52 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Essex County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Essex County
Closest first, across Essex County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- APPLETON FARMBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- PINGREE SCHOOLBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- SARGENT'S AUTOMOTIVE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- HAMILTON WATER DEPTPFAS · 1.2 mi
- HAMILTON WENHAM REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- NEW ENGLAND BIOLABSBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- MA-IPW 340Nitrate · 1.4 mi
- A & M MOTORS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- HAMILTON DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKSBrownfields · 1.7 mi
- TOWN OF HAMILTONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- MYOPIA HUNT CLUBBrownfields · 1.8 mi
- RIVERBEND IRWA HEADQUARTERSBrownfields · 1.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Essex County'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 Essex County.
Sources Checked
across Essex County
Severity Distribution
across Essex County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Essex County, two things run higher than the national average across Essex County — Brownfields (2,184 sites) and Superfund (52 sites). 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.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Essex County
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 Essex County average
Your land is one point inside Essex County
Everything above resolves to Essex County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 315K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Essex County Average
Essex County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Essex County
- ●One soil character for all of Essex County
- ●Frost dates read at Essex County's scale: Apr 7 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Essex County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Essex County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Essex County, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Essex County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Essex County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Essex County average
How we know this about Essex County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Essex County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Essex County
When does frost risk typically end in Essex County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Essex County typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
How long is the growing season in Essex County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Essex County sees about 212 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 22, about 177 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Essex County?
The federal record around Essex County runs heavier than most — 3,658 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (2,184), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.5 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.
Everything above is measured at Essex County's scale — its 6b band and its 212-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Essex County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Massachusetts's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Essex County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Essex County's own scale — its own ~212-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 3,658 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Essex County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Essex County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~212-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Essex CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 3,658 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Essex County's boundary and the 315,209 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~212-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Essex County sitting wholly inside the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Essex County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Essex County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Massachusetts grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Massachusetts
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Essex County — the ~212 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Essex County's 315,209 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 3,658 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Essex Countyread your own land →