Yale, Michigan, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
The conditions favor cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Yale, 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 Yale 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 Yale — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Yale — the short answer
Yale, Michigan: USDA zone 6a, about 180 days between hard freezes, across 879 acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~180
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 879 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 Yale's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Yale's 180-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Yale
Each reading below is measured for Yale itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredYale runs about 180 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredYale 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 Yale is in
Yale sits in the Huron/Erie Lake Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Yale's own centroid rather than borrowed from St. Clair County.
What Grows in Yale
Every plant below cleared Yale's own zone 6a and its 180-day season. Each card opens that plant's Michigan profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Yale?
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 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 21 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
Documented around Yale
Survey cells within 31 miles of Yale checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 44 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Yale
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Yale. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 250 ft
- Walts TotalUnderground Storage Tanks · 250 ft
- Thumb Auto Parts IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- MAIN STREET DENTISTRY PCBrownfields · 450 ft
- MI DEPT/NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENTBrownfields · 600 ft
- MI DEPT/TRANSPORTATIONBrownfields · 650 ft
- Amoco Group IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- SHELL OIL COMPANYBrownfields · 750 ft
- Yale School DistrictUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- Amoco Oil CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- Sunrise Store #07Underground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- Yale Elementary SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Yale'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 Yale.
Total Sites
124
within ~10 miles of Yale
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
2 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Yale
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Yale
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Yale, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 44 sites within ~10 miles of Yale. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Yale
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 Yale average
Your land is one point inside Yale
Everything above resolves to Yale as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 879 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 Yale Average
Yale Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Yale
- ●One soil character for all of Yale
- ●Frost dates read at Yale's scale: Apr 24 to Oct 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Yale's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Yale
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Yale, Michigan — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Yale averages can't show:
We read public map data around Yale — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Yale average
How we know this about Yale
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 Yale’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 Yale
When does frost risk typically end in Yale?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Yale typically lands around Apr 24, 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 May 15.
When is the first frost in Yale?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Yale typically arrives around Oct 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 7, so the watching starts about Sep 21 — about 180 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Yale?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Yale sees about 180 frost-free days — roughly Apr 24 through Oct 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 15 to Oct 7, about 145 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Yale?
The federal record around Yale shows 124 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (51), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Yale?
From about Sep 21 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 Oct 21 (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 Oct 21. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Yale's scale — its 6a band and its 180-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Yale'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 Yale’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Yale's own scale — its own ~180-day season between 28°F freezes, the 879 acres it covers and 124 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Yale's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Yale's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 24 and Oct 21 and the ~180-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 124 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Yale, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Yale's boundary and the 879 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~180-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Yale's own centroid, the Huron/Erie Lake PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Yale checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Yale's 879 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom St. Clair County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom St. Clair 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 St. Clair County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Yale's 879 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Yale you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 879 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 Yale-wide figureread your own land →
More in Michigan
Wider growing context
What grows across MichiganYale sits outside our named growing regions, so Michigan as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides