White Island Shores, Massachusetts, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — 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, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
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 White Island Shores, 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 White Island Shores 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 White Island Shores — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
White Island Shores — the short answer
White Island Shores, Massachusetts: USDA zone 7a, about 213 days between hard freezes, across 741 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 8
- 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
- ~213
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 741 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 White Island Shores's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against White Island Shores's 213-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in White Island Shores
Each reading below is measured for White Island Shores itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWhite Island Shores runs about 213 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
MeasuredWhite Island Shores 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 White Island Shores is in
White Island Shores sits in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at White Island Shores'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 White Island Shores
Every plant below cleared White Island Shores's own zone 7a and its 213-day season. Each card opens that plant's Massachusetts profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in White Island Shores?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 8 (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 White Island Shores
Spotted lanternfly documented 7 miles from White Island Shores, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near White Island Shores
Closest first, within ~10 miles of White Island Shores. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FRANCIS & ELIZABETH FOLGERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- MA-WFW 84Nitrate · 1500 ft
- CENTURY BOGSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- UMASS AGRICULTURAL STATIONBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- RESIDENCEBrownfields · 1.5 mi
- MA-WFW 407Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- MA-WFW 456Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- MA-WFW 455Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- MA-WFW 459Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- MA-WFW 458Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- MA-WFW 428Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- PLYMOUTH FIRE DEPT STATION 4Underground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from White Island Shores'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 White Island Shores.
Total Sites
803
within ~10 miles of White Island Shores
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
7 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of White Island Shores
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of White Island Shores
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around White Island Shores, PFAS runs higher than the national average — 8 sites within ~10 miles of White Island Shores. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in White Island Shores
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 White Island Shores average
Your land is one point inside White Island Shores
Everything above resolves to White Island Shores as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 741 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 White Island Shores Average
White Island Shores Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across White Island Shores
- ●One soil character for all of White Island Shores
- ●Frost dates read at White Island Shores's scale: Apr 8 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not White Island Shores's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in White Island Shores
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in White Island Shores, Massachusetts — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that White Island Shores averages can't show:
We read public map data around White Island Shores — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the White Island Shores average
How we know this about White Island Shores
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 White Island Shores’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 White Island Shores
When does frost risk typically end in White Island Shores?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in White Island Shores typically lands around Apr 8, 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 29.
When is the first frost in White Island Shores?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in White Island Shores 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 213 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in White Island Shores?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, White Island Shores sees about 213 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 24, about 178 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in White Island Shores?
The federal record around White Island Shores is a meaningful one — 803 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (361), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 White Island Shores?
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 White Island Shores's scale — its 7a band and its 213-day season. Your yard writes its own version of White Island Shores'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 White Island Shores’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at White Island Shores's own scale — its own ~213-day season between 28°F freezes, the 741 acres it covers and 803 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- White Island Shores's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- White Island Shores's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 8 and Nov 7 and the ~213-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 803 documented contamination sites on the federal record near White Island Shores, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- White Island Shores's boundary and the 741 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~213-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- White Island Shores 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 White Island Shoreslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so White Island Shores's 741 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 White Island Shores's 741 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of White Island Shores you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 741 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 White Island Shores-wide figureread your own land →
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