Nahant, Massachusetts, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by 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 Nahant, 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 Nahant 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 Nahant — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Nahant — the short answer
Nahant, Massachusetts: USDA zone 7a, about 237 days between hard freezes, across 689 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~237
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 689 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 7a is Nahant's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Nahant's 237-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Nahant
Each reading below is measured for Nahant itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNahant runs about 237 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
MeasuredNahant sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Nahant is in
Nahant sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Nahant's own centroid rather than borrowed from Essex County.
What Grows in Nahant
Every plant below cleared Nahant's own zone 7a and its 237-day season. Each card opens that plant's Massachusetts profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Nahant?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 29 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 21 — 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 Nahant
Spotted lanternfly documented 10 miles from Nahant, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Nahant
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Nahant. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- JOHNSON ELEMENTERY SCHOOLBrownfields · 1100 ft
- TOWN OF NAHANT PUBLIC WORKSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- ENZOS NAHANT GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- TOWN OF NAHANTBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- TOWN OF NAHANT POLICE DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- NAHANT WATER DEPT. (MWRA)PFAS · 0.8 mi
- NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- POINT OF PINES YACHT CLUBUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- REVERE SHIPYARDUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- 190 NORTH SHORE RD LLCBrownfields · 2.3 mi
- ENGINE 2 FIRE STATIONBrownfields · 2.3 mi
- Lynn Eastern Smelt & Refin CorpMining · 2.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Nahant'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 Nahant.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Nahant
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Nahant
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Nahant, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 3,313 sites within ~10 miles of Nahant. 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.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Nahant
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 Nahant average
Your land is one point inside Nahant
Everything above resolves to Nahant as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 689 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 Nahant Average
Nahant Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Nahant
- ●One soil character for all of Nahant
- ●Frost dates read at Nahant's scale: Mar 29 to Nov 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Nahant's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Nahant
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Nahant, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Nahant averages can't show:
We read public map data around Nahant — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Nahant average
How we know this about Nahant
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 Nahant’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 Nahant
When does frost risk typically end in Nahant?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Nahant typically lands around Mar 29, 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 19.
When is the first frost in Nahant?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Nahant typically arrives around Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 7, so the watching starts about Oct 22 — about 237 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Nahant?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Nahant sees about 237 frost-free days — roughly Mar 29 through Nov 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 19 to Nov 7, about 202 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Nahant?
The federal record around Nahant runs heavier than most — 4,749 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (3,313), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Nahant?
From about Oct 22 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 21 (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 21. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Nahant's scale — its 7a band and its 237-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Nahant'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 Nahant’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Nahant's own scale — its own ~237-day season between 28°F freezes, the 689 acres it covers and 4,749 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Nahant's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Nahant's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 29 and Nov 21 and the ~237-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 4,749 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Nahant, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Nahant's boundary and the 689 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~237-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Nahant's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Nahantlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Nahant's 689 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 Nahant's 689 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Nahant you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 689 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Nahant-wide figureread your own land →
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