Edgartown, Massachusetts, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
The conditions favor cabbage, prickly pear, 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 Edgartown, 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 Edgartown 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 Edgartown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Edgartown — the short answer
Edgartown, Massachusetts: USDA zone 7b, about 229 days between hard freezes, across 765 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~229
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 765 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 Edgartown's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Edgartown's 229-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Edgartown
Each reading below is measured for Edgartown itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredEdgartown runs about 229 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
MeasuredEdgartown 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 Edgartown is in
Edgartown sits in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Edgartown's own centroid rather than borrowed from Dukes County.
What Grows in Edgartown
Every plant below cleared Edgartown's own zone 7b and its 229-day season. Each card opens that plant's Massachusetts profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Edgartown?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 17 — 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 Edgartown
Spotted lanternfly documented 5 miles from Edgartown, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Edgartown
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Edgartown. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MARTHAS VINEYARD BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBBrownfields · 450 ft
- WELL'S OIL SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- DEPOT CORNER SHELLUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- EDGARTOWN POLICE DEPARTMENTBrownfields · 950 ft
- EDGARTOWN MOBILUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- EDGARTOWN HARDWARE INCBrownfields · 1300 ft
- NOYES AL AUTOMOTIVE INCBrownfields · 1500 ft
- STOP & SHOP SUPERMARKET 0422Brownfields · 1700 ft
- STOP & SHOP SUPERMARKET 0423Brownfields · 1700 ft
- MA-ENW 25Nitrate · 2000 ft
- BELL ATLANTICUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- NORTH WHARFUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Edgartown'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 Edgartown.
Total Sites
123
within ~10 miles of Edgartown
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Edgartown
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Edgartown
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Edgartown, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Edgartown — PFAS (3 sites) and Brownfields (69 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Edgartown
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 Edgartown average
Your land is one point inside Edgartown
Everything above resolves to Edgartown as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 765 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 Edgartown Average
Edgartown Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Edgartown
- ●One soil character for all of Edgartown
- ●Frost dates read at Edgartown's scale: Apr 2 to Nov 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Edgartown's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Edgartown
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Edgartown, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Edgartown averages can't show:
We read public map data around Edgartown — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Edgartown average
How we know this about Edgartown
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 Edgartown’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 Edgartown
When does frost risk typically end in Edgartown?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Edgartown typically lands around Apr 2, 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 23.
When is the first frost in Edgartown?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Edgartown typically arrives around Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 3, so the watching starts about Oct 18 — about 229 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Edgartown?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Edgartown sees about 229 frost-free days — roughly Apr 2 through Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 23 to Nov 3, about 194 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Edgartown?
The federal record around Edgartown is a meaningful one — 123 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (69), the nearest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Edgartown?
From about Oct 18 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 17 (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 17. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Edgartown's scale — its 7b band and its 229-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Edgartown'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 Edgartown’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Edgartown's own scale — its own ~229-day season between 28°F freezes, the 765 acres it covers and 123 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Edgartown's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Edgartown's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 2 and Nov 17 and the ~229-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 123 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Edgartown, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Edgartown's boundary and the 765 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~229-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Edgartown's own centroid, the Atlantic Coastal Pine BarrensUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Edgartownlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Edgartown's 765 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Dukes County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Dukes 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 Dukes County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Edgartown's 765 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Edgartown you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 765 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Edgartown-wide figureread your own land →