The Pinehills, Massachusetts, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
You’re in South Shore
The coastal band south of Boston into old cranberry country — sandy, acidic ground and a maritime season that runs a touch longer than the interior. Bog and shoreline shape what has always grown well down here.
Even in The Pinehills, 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 The Pinehills 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 The Pinehills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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The Pinehills — the short answer
The Pinehills, Massachusetts: USDA zone 7a, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~218
- 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 The Pinehills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against The Pinehills's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in The Pinehills
Each reading below is measured for The Pinehills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredThe Pinehills runs about 218 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
MeasuredThe Pinehills 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 The Pinehills is in
The Pinehills sits in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at The Pinehills's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Plymouth County is mostly Northeastern Coastal Zone. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in The Pinehills
Every plant below cleared The Pinehills's own zone 7a and its 218-day season. Each card opens that plant's Massachusetts profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in The Pinehills?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — 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 The Pinehills
Spotted lanternfly documented 0 miles from The Pinehills, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near The Pinehills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of The Pinehills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MANOMET LANDFILLSuperfund · 0.7 mi
- PLYMOUTH DPWBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- OLD SANDWICH GOLF CLUBBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- LEVIS GULFUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- IVAN W RICHMONDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- PLYMOUTH SOUTH HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- RICHMAOND SAND AND GRAVEL INCBrownfields · 1.9 mi
- PINEHILLS WATER COMPANY, INC.PFAS · 2.1 mi
- PLYMOUTH WATER DEPARTMENT, MAPFAS · 2.1 mi
- INDIAN BROOK CRANBERRY BOGS INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- 7-ELEVEN #32482Underground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- CVS PHARMACY 1867Brownfields · 2.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from The Pinehills'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 The Pinehills.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of The Pinehills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of The Pinehills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around The Pinehills, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 288 sites within ~10 miles of The Pinehills. 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 The Pinehills
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 Pinehills average
Your land is one point inside The Pinehills
Everything above resolves to The Pinehills 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 The Pinehills Average
The Pinehills Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across The Pinehills
- ●One soil character for all of The Pinehills
- ●Frost dates read at The Pinehills's scale: Apr 6 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not The Pinehills's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in The Pinehills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in The Pinehills, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pinehills averages can't show:
We read public map data around The Pinehills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pinehills average
How we know this about The Pinehills
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 The Pinehills’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 The Pinehills
When does frost risk typically end in The Pinehills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in The Pinehills typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
When is the first frost in The Pinehills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in The Pinehills typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 218 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in The Pinehills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, The Pinehills sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 27, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in The Pinehills?
The federal record around The Pinehills is a meaningful one — 575 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (288), the nearest Superfund record about 0.7 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in The Pinehills?
From about Oct 11 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 10 (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 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at The Pinehills's scale — its 7a band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of The Pinehills'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 The Pinehills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at The Pinehills's own scale — its own ~218-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,611 acres it covers and 575 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- The Pinehills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- The Pinehills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Nov 10 and the ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 575 documented contamination sites on the federal record near The Pinehills, the closest Superfund record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- The Pinehills's boundary and the 2,611 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The Pinehills sits in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of The Pinehillslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so The Pinehills's 2,611 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Plymouth County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Plymouth 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 Plymouth County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among The Pinehills's 2,611 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of The Pinehills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,611 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Superfund record about 0.7 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 The Pinehills-wide figureread your own land →
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