Essex, Massachusetts, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
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.
Even in Essex, 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 Essex 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 Essex — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Essex — the short answer
Essex, Massachusetts: USDA zone 6b, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- 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
- ~226
- 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 6b is Essex's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Essex's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Essex
Each reading below is measured for Essex itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredEssex runs about 226 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
MeasuredEssex 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 Essex is in
Essex sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Essex's own centroid rather than borrowed from Essex County.
What Grows in Essex
Every plant below cleared Essex's own zone 6b and its 226-day season. Each card opens that plant's Massachusetts profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Essex?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (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. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Essex
Spotted lanternfly documented 10 miles from Essex, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Essex
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Essex. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- VERIZON MASSACHUSETTS #593206Underground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- PERKINS CARPENTRY INC DBA WISE MARINEBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- ERNIE'S SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- NIEBERLE SERVICE DBA ERNIES SERV STATIONBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- TEXACO SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- PERKINS MARINE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- PIKE MARINEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- PIKE MARINE INCBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- ESSEX ENERGY NORTH #2120Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- ENERGY NORTH INC 2120Brownfields · 0.8 mi
- WHITEY'S GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- WHITEYS GARAGEBrownfields · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Essex'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.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Essex
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Essex
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Essex, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Essex — Superfund (15 sites) and PFAS (9 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Essex
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 average
Your land is one point inside Essex
Everything above resolves to Essex 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 Essex Average
Essex Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Essex
- ●One soil character for all of Essex
- ●Frost dates read at Essex's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 13
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Essex's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Essex
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Essex, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Essex averages can't show:
We read public map data around Essex — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Essex average
How we know this about Essex
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 Essex’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 Essex
When does frost risk typically end in Essex?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Essex typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Essex?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Essex 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 226 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Essex?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Essex sees about 226 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 13, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 30, about 191 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Essex?
The federal record around Essex is a meaningful one — 806 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (492), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Essex?
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 Essex's scale — its 6b band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Essex'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 Essex’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Essex's own scale — its own ~226-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,318 acres it covers and 806 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Essex's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Essex's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 13 and the ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 806 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Essex, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Essex's boundary and the 1,318 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~226-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Essex's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Essexlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Essex's 1,318 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Essex County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Essex 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 Essex County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Essex's 1,318 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Essex you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,318 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Essex-wide figureread your own land →
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