Worcester County, in Massachusetts, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
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.
Worcester County lies within Central Massachusetts — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Worcester County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Worcester 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 Worcester County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Worcester County — the short answer
Worcester County, Massachusetts: USDA zone 6a, about 205 days between hard freezes, across 967K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~205
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 967K 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 6a is Worcester County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Worcester County's 205-day season, see what your own ground reads.
One county, several growing seasons
Worcester County's hard-freeze record runs about 205 days between freezes — but that is the county-wide average, and several towns inside it carry a markedly different season in their own 30-year record: South Ashburnham at about 173 days (against the county's ~205).
Those are measured records, not estimates. If you garden in one of these pockets, plant against your own town's season rather than the county's ~205-day average.
NOAA Regional Climate Centers ACIS (1991–2020), 30-year daily minimum record. Only held-out towns carrying their own record are named — a town with no record of its own is absent rather than estimated, and a county with nothing qualifying shows no spread at all.
Heat in Worcester County
Across a year, Worcester County accumulates about 2,160 growing degree days above 50°F, about 366 fewer than the middle Massachusetts county — ahead of 1 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 Worcester County
Across Worcester County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Paxton, Woodbridge, and Canton 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 C soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
14%
Hydric soils
15%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Worcester County
The USDA soil survey maps 50% of Worcester County as well drained — but another 43% drains differently: 16% moderately well drained, 10% very poorly drained.
Paxton is the most extensive named soil at 18% of mapped acres, then Woodbridge (9%) and Canton (8%).
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 Worcester County
Each reading below is measured for Worcester 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 Worcester County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — 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 Worcester 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 15% of Worcester 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
MeasuredWorcester County runs about 205 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 Worcester County is in
Worcester County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Northeastern Coastal Zone (74%) and Northeastern Highlands (26%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Worcester County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Worcester County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 205-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 Worcester 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 12; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — 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 Worcester County
Spotted lanternfly documented 10 miles from Worcester County, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle46 documented records
- monarch butterfly246 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Worcester County
USGS estimates 2,262 lb of Glyphosate on Worcester County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (1,946 lb) and Atrazine (1,289 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 Worcester County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Worcester County — 5,134 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 58 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Worcester 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 Worcester County
Closest first, across Worcester County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ARMAND R CASAVANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- MOORE STATE PARK 1 SAW MILL RD., PAXTON, MABrownfields · 0.6 mi
- Gaby Shabo's Garage, LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- PAXTON GARAGE INCBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- MA-PBW 9Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- PAXTON MUNICIPAL LIGHT DEPTBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- PAXTON WATER DEPARTMENTPFAS · 1.2 mi
- WORCESTER REGIONAL TRANSIT AUTHORITYBrownfields · 1.4 mi
- HARRISON H PRENTICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- ANNA MARIA COLLEGEBrownfields · 1.7 mi
- PAXTON GULF SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- FORRESTS REPAIRSBrownfields · 1.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Worcester 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 Worcester County.
Sources Checked
across Worcester County
Severity Distribution
across Worcester County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Worcester County, two things run higher than the national average across Worcester County — Brownfields (3,092 sites) and PFAS (44 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.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Worcester 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 Worcester County average
Your land is one point inside Worcester County
Everything above resolves to Worcester County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 967K 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 Worcester County Average
Worcester County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Worcester County
- ●One soil character for all of Worcester County
- ●Frost dates read at Worcester County's scale: Apr 9 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Worcester County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Worcester County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Worcester County, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Worcester County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Worcester County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Worcester County average
How we know this about Worcester 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 Worcester County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Worcester County
When does frost risk typically end in Worcester County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Worcester County typically lands around Apr 9, 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 30.
How long is the growing season in Worcester County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Worcester County sees about 205 frost-free days — roughly Apr 9 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 30 to Oct 17, about 170 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Worcester County?
The federal record around Worcester County runs heavier than most — 5,134 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (3,092), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Worcester County's scale — its 6a band and its 205-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Worcester 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 Worcester County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Worcester County's own scale — its own ~205-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 5,134 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Worcester County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Worcester County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~205-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Worcester CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 5,134 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Worcester County's boundary and the 966,828 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~205-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Worcester County spans, Northeastern Coastal Zone the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Worcester County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Worcester 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 Worcester County — the ~205 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 Worcester County's 966,828 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 5,134 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 Worcester Countyread your own land →