New Bedford, Massachusetts, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
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 New Bedford, 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 New Bedford 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 New Bedford — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
New Bedford — the short answer
New Bedford, Massachusetts: USDA zone 7a, about 217 days between hard freezes, across 13K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~217
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 13K 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 New Bedford's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against New Bedford's 217-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in New Bedford
Each reading below is measured for New Bedford itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNew Bedford runs about 217 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
MeasuredNew Bedford 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 New Bedford is in
New Bedford sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at New Bedford's own centroid rather than borrowed from Bristol County.
What Grows in New Bedford
Every plant below cleared New Bedford's own zone 7a and its 217-day season. Each card opens that plant's Massachusetts profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in New Bedford?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — 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 New Bedford
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from New Bedford, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near New Bedford
Closest first, within ~10 miles of New Bedford. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DON ADAMS OILUnderground Storage Tanks · 200 ft
- SULLIVAN-FOSTER INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 250 ft
- UNIVERSAL ROOFING & SHEET METALUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- MINIT MAN AUTO WASHUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- LIMAS GARAGE & AUTO BODY INCBrownfields · 500 ft
- VALTRAN, INC.Brownfields · 650 ft
- GLENN HARTEUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- EXECUTIVE AUTOBrownfields · 800 ft
- EMPIRE FORD OF NEW BEDFORD INCBrownfields · 1100 ft
- ASHLEY FORD SALES INCBrownfields · 1100 ft
- U-HAUL CENTER OF NEW BEDFORDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- PRESIDENTIAL HEIGHTSBrownfields · 1200 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from New Bedford'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 New Bedford.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of New Bedford
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of New Bedford
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around New Bedford, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 576 sites within ~10 miles of New Bedford. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
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 New Bedford
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 New Bedford average
Your land is one point inside New Bedford
Everything above resolves to New Bedford as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 13K 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 city 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 New Bedford Average
New Bedford Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across New Bedford
- ●One soil character for all of New Bedford
- ●Frost dates read at New Bedford's scale: Apr 4 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not New Bedford's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in New Bedford
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in New Bedford, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that New Bedford averages can't show:
We read public map data around New Bedford — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the New Bedford average
How we know this about New Bedford
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at New Bedford’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 New Bedford
When does frost risk typically end in New Bedford?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in New Bedford typically lands around Apr 4, 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 25.
When is the first frost in New Bedford?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in New Bedford typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 217 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in New Bedford?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, New Bedford sees about 217 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 24, about 182 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in New Bedford?
The federal record around New Bedford runs heavier than most — 995 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (576), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 New Bedford?
From about Oct 8 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at New Bedford's scale — its 7a band and its 217-day season. Your yard writes its own version of New Bedford'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 New Bedford’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at New Bedford's own scale — its own ~217-day season between 28°F freezes, the 12,801 acres it covers and 995 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- New Bedford's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- New Bedford's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Nov 7 and the ~217-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 995 documented contamination sites on the federal record near New Bedford, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- New Bedford's boundary and the 12,801 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~217-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at New Bedford's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of New Bedfordlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so New Bedford's 12,801 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 New Bedford's 12,801 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of New Bedford you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 12,801 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 New Bedford-wide figureread your own land →