Ipswich, Massachusetts, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own 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 Ipswich, 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 Ipswich 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 Ipswich — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Ipswich — the short answer
Ipswich, Massachusetts: USDA zone 6b, about 214 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~214
- 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 Ipswich's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Ipswich's 214-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Ipswich
Each reading below is measured for Ipswich itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredIpswich runs about 214 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
MeasuredIpswich 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 Ipswich is in
Ipswich sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Ipswich's own centroid rather than borrowed from Essex County.
What Grows in Ipswich
Every plant below cleared Ipswich's own zone 6b and its 214-day season. Each card opens that plant's Massachusetts profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Ipswich?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Ipswich
Spotted lanternfly documented 6 miles from Ipswich, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Ipswich
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Ipswich. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MARSHVIEW FARM LLCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- IPSWICH HIGHWAY GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- LANNAN CHEVROLET-OLDS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- VERIZON MASSACHUSETTS #592306Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- GETTY STATION #30616Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- BEVERLY HOSPITALUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- IPSWICH DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS GARAGEBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- BRAKE AND CLUTCH INCBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- TYLERS BLOCK CONDOMINIUM TRUSTBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- TONNA TECHNOLOGIES, INCToxics Release Inventory · 0.9 mi
- OSRAM SYLVANIAToxics Release Inventory · 0.9 mi
- RICHDALE STORE #96Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Ipswich'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 Ipswich.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Ipswich
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Ipswich
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Ipswich, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Ipswich — Superfund (18 sites) and Brownfields (596 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.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Ipswich
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 Ipswich average
Your land is one point inside Ipswich
Everything above resolves to Ipswich 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 Ipswich Average
Ipswich Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Ipswich
- ●One soil character for all of Ipswich
- ●Frost dates read at Ipswich's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Ipswich's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Ipswich
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Ipswich, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Ipswich averages can't show:
We read public map data around Ipswich — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Ipswich average
How we know this about Ipswich
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 Ipswich’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 Ipswich
When does frost risk typically end in Ipswich?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Ipswich typically lands around Apr 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in Ipswich?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Ipswich typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 214 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Ipswich?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Ipswich sees about 214 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 22, about 179 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Ipswich?
The federal record around Ipswich runs heavier than most — 1,014 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (596), 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Ipswich?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Ipswich's scale — its 6b band and its 214-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Ipswich'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 Ipswich’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Ipswich's own scale — its own ~214-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,049 acres it covers and 1,014 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Ipswich's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Ipswich's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Nov 5 and the ~214-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,014 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Ipswich, the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Ipswich's boundary and the 1,049 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~214-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Ipswich's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Ipswichlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Ipswich's 1,049 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 Ipswich's 1,049 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Ipswich you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,049 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 Ipswich-wide figureread your own land →
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