Mansfield Center, Massachusetts, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
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.
You’re in Southeastern Massachusetts
The low coastal plain of the South Coast — mild, moist, and worked for market vegetables and small orchards for generations. One of the gentler corners of the Massachusetts growing map.
Even in Mansfield Center, 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 Mansfield Center 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 Mansfield Center — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Mansfield Center — the short answer
Mansfield Center, Massachusetts: USDA zone 6b, about 198 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 13
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~198
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 Mansfield Center's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mansfield Center's 198-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Mansfield Center
Each reading below is measured for Mansfield Center itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMansfield Center runs about 198 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredMansfield Center 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 Mansfield Center is in
Mansfield Center sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Mansfield Center's own centroid rather than borrowed from Bristol County.
What Grows in Mansfield Center
Every plant below cleared Mansfield Center's own zone 6b and its 198-day season. Each card opens that plant's Massachusetts profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Mansfield Center?
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 16; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 13 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 28 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. As the window narrows, the plantings just get faster — fall brassicas, then greens, then garlic to finish.
Documented around Mansfield Center
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Mansfield Center, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Mansfield Center
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Mansfield Center. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NORTH MAIN ST UNDERPASSBrownfields · 750 ft
- SAMMYS AUTO CARE INCBrownfields · 750 ft
- VACHER AUTO REPAIRBrownfields · 750 ft
- OLD COLONY MOTORSBrownfields · 950 ft
- 4 CORNER CITGOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- MANSFIELD WATER DIVISIONPFAS · 1700 ft
- MANSFIELD MUNICIPAL ELECTRIC DBrownfields · 2100 ft
- BROTHERS MACHINING CORPBrownfields · 2100 ft
- VERIZON MASSACHUSETTS #566306Underground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- AMERICAN PAPER RECYCLING CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- AMERICAN PAPER RECYCLINGBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- MANSFIELD MUNICIPAL ELECTRICUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mansfield Center'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 Mansfield Center.
Total Sites
1,910
within ~10 miles of Mansfield Center
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
35 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Mansfield Center
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Mansfield Center
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mansfield Center, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Mansfield Center — Superfund (35 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (153 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Mansfield Center
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 Mansfield Center average
Your land is one point inside Mansfield Center
Everything above resolves to Mansfield Center as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Mansfield Center Average
Mansfield Center Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Mansfield Center
- ●One soil character for all of Mansfield Center
- ●Frost dates read at Mansfield Center's scale: Apr 13 to Oct 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mansfield Center's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Mansfield Center
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mansfield Center, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mansfield Center averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mansfield Center — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mansfield Center average
How we know this about Mansfield Center
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 Mansfield Center’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 Mansfield Center
When does frost risk typically end in Mansfield Center?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mansfield Center typically lands around Apr 13, 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 May 4.
When is the first frost in Mansfield Center?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Mansfield Center typically arrives around Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 14, so the watching starts about Sep 28 — about 198 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Mansfield Center?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mansfield Center sees about 198 frost-free days — roughly Apr 13 through Oct 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 4 to Oct 14, about 163 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mansfield Center?
The federal record around Mansfield Center runs heavier than most — 1,910 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (1,161), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 Mansfield Center?
From about Sep 28 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 Oct 28 (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 Oct 28. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Mansfield Center's scale — its 6b band and its 198-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mansfield Center'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 Mansfield Center’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Mansfield Center's own scale — its own ~198-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,764 acres it covers and 1,910 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mansfield Center's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mansfield Center's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 13 and Oct 28 and the ~198-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,910 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Mansfield Center, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Mansfield Center's boundary and the 1,764 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~198-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Mansfield Center's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Mansfield Centerlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Mansfield Center's 1,764 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Bristol County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Bristol 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 Bristol County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Mansfield Center's 1,764 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Mansfield Center you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,764 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 Mansfield Center-wide figureread your own land →