New Buffalo, Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Growers here do well with cabbage, blueberry, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in New Buffalo, 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 Buffalo 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 Buffalo — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
New Buffalo — the short answer
New Buffalo, Michigan: USDA zone 6a, about 223 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- 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 15
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~223
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 2K 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 6a is New Buffalo's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against New Buffalo's 223-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in New Buffalo
Each reading below is measured for New Buffalo itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNew Buffalo 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
MeasuredNew Buffalo sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Buffalo is in
New Buffalo sits in the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at New Buffalo's own centroid rather than borrowed from Berrien County.
What Grows in New Buffalo
Every plant below cleared New Buffalo's own zone 6a and its 223-day season. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in New Buffalo?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. 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 15 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around New Buffalo
Spotted lanternfly documented 20 miles from New Buffalo, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near New Buffalo
Closest first, within ~10 miles of New Buffalo. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- New Buffalo Area SchoolsUnderground Storage Tanks · 200 ft
- Bible Baptist ChurchUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- Harbor Country Banking-new BuffaUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Outpost SportsUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Eggert's ServiceUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Bud & ElsiesUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- Knoll BrothersUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Former Sunshine Fruit CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- City Of New BuffaloUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- Impatient Two Sport ShopUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- New Buffalo Lakeside CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- Galien River Sanitary DistrictUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from New Buffalo'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 Buffalo.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of New Buffalo
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of New Buffalo
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around New Buffalo, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of New Buffalo — Superfund (7 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (218 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in New Buffalo
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 Buffalo average
Your land is one point inside New Buffalo
Everything above resolves to New Buffalo as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Buffalo Average
New Buffalo Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across New Buffalo
- ●One soil character for all of New Buffalo
- ●Frost dates read at New Buffalo's scale: Apr 6 to Nov 15
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not New Buffalo's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in New Buffalo
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in New Buffalo, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that New Buffalo averages can't show:
We read public map data around New Buffalo — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the New Buffalo average
How we know this about New Buffalo
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 Buffalo’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 Buffalo
When does frost risk typically end in New Buffalo?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in New Buffalo 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 New Buffalo?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in New Buffalo typically arrives around Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 1, so the watching starts about Oct 16 — about 223 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in New Buffalo?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, New Buffalo sees about 223 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Nov 15, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Nov 1, about 188 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in New Buffalo?
The federal record around New Buffalo is a meaningful one — 331 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (218), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 New Buffalo?
From about Oct 16 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 15 (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 15. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at New Buffalo's scale — its 6a band and its 223-day season. Your yard writes its own version of New Buffalo'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 Buffalo’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at New Buffalo's own scale — its own ~223-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,579 acres it covers and 331 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- New Buffalo's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- New Buffalo's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Nov 15 and the ~223-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 331 documented contamination sites on the federal record near New Buffalo, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- New Buffalo's boundary and the 1,579 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~223-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at New Buffalo's own centroid, the Southern Michigan/Northern Indiana Drift PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of New Buffalolydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so New Buffalo's 1,579 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Berrien County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Berrien County
- The growing challenges every Michigan grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Michigan
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Berrien County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among New Buffalo's 1,579 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of New Buffalo you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,579 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 Buffalo-wide figureread your own land →