Smith Mills, 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 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 Smith Mills, 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 Smith Mills 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 Smith Mills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Smith Mills — the short answer
Smith Mills, Massachusetts: USDA zone 7a, about 223 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~223
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Smith Mills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Smith Mills's 223-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Smith Mills
Each reading below is measured for Smith Mills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSmith Mills runs about 223 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
MeasuredSmith Mills 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 Smith Mills is in
Smith Mills sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Smith Mills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Bristol County.
What Grows in Smith Mills
Every plant below cleared Smith Mills's own zone 7a and its 223-day season. Each card opens that plant's Massachusetts profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Smith Mills?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 9 — 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 Smith Mills
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Smith Mills, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Smith Mills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Smith Mills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BJ'S WHOLESALE CLUB 23Underground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- MASS DPW MAINT DEPOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- SPARKS TUNE UPBrownfields · 2300 ft
- TJ MAXX T0672Brownfields · 2400 ft
- BJ'S WHOLESALE CLUB 023Brownfields · 2400 ft
- SALLYS BEAUTY SUPPLY 1369Brownfields · 2400 ft
- EXPRESS 217Brownfields · 2400 ft
- BED BATH AND BEYOND 0844Brownfields · 2400 ft
- HOME DEPOT STORE 2673Brownfields · 2400 ft
- GOODYEAR AUTO SERVICE CENTER 0333Brownfields · 2500 ft
- TOMS AUTO REPAIRBrownfields · 2500 ft
- UNITED PARCEL SERVICE MADARBrownfields · 2500 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Smith Mills'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 Smith Mills.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Smith Mills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Smith Mills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Smith Mills, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Smith Mills — Brownfields (836 sites) and Superfund (19 sites). 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.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Smith Mills
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 Smith Mills average
Your land is one point inside Smith Mills
Everything above resolves to Smith Mills as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Smith Mills Average
Smith Mills Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Smith Mills
- ●One soil character for all of Smith Mills
- ●Frost dates read at Smith Mills's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Smith Mills's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Smith Mills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Smith Mills, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Smith Mills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Smith Mills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Smith Mills average
How we know this about Smith Mills
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 Smith Mills’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 Smith Mills
When does frost risk typically end in Smith Mills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Smith Mills typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
When is the first frost in Smith Mills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Smith Mills typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 223 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Smith Mills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Smith Mills sees about 223 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 26, about 188 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Smith Mills?
The federal record around Smith Mills runs heavier than most — 1,422 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (836), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Smith Mills?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Smith Mills's scale — its 7a band and its 223-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Smith Mills'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 Smith Mills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Smith Mills's own scale — its own ~223-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,988 acres it covers and 1,422 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Smith Mills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Smith Mills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 9 and the ~223-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,422 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Smith Mills, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Smith Mills's boundary and the 2,988 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~223-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Smith Mills's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Smith Millslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Smith Mills's 2,988 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 Smith Mills's 2,988 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Smith Mills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,988 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Smith Mills-wide figureread your own land →