Center Ossipee, New Hampshire, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Center Ossipee, 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 Center Ossipee 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 Center Ossipee — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Center Ossipee — the short answer
Center Ossipee, New Hampshire: USDA zone 5a, about 171 days between hard freezes, across 638 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~171
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 638 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 5a is Center Ossipee's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Center Ossipee's 171-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Center Ossipee
Each reading below is measured for Center Ossipee itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCenter Ossipee runs about 171 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
MeasuredCenter Ossipee sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a.
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 Center Ossipee is in
Center Ossipee sits in the Northeastern Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northern Forests. That is read at Center Ossipee's own centroid rather than borrowed from Carroll County.
What Grows in Center Ossipee
Every plant below cleared Center Ossipee's own zone 5a and its 171-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Hampshire profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Center Ossipee?
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 31; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 16 — 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 Center Ossipee
Survey cells within 31 miles of Center Ossipee checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 42 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Center Ossipee
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Center Ossipee. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- OSSIPEE HIGHWAY DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- FMR. JOHNSON & DIX FUEL CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- D & A AUTO BODY NORTHBrownfields · 1800 ft
- IRVING OSSIPEE BULK PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- OSSIPEE INDIAN MOUND IRVINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- INDIAN MOUND IGAUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- NH DOT SATELLITE GARAGE 399Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- NH-OXW 147Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- DOLLAR GENERAL 17352Brownfields · 0.8 mi
- P B & J VILLAGE STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- NH-OXW 71Nitrate · 1.4 mi
- NH-OXW 168Nitrate · 1.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Center Ossipee'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 Center Ossipee.
Total Sites
255
within ~10 miles of Center Ossipee
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Center Ossipee
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Center Ossipee
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Center Ossipee, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 130 sites within ~10 miles of Center Ossipee. 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 Center Ossipee
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 Center Ossipee average
Your land is one point inside Center Ossipee
Everything above resolves to Center Ossipee as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 638 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 Center Ossipee Average
Center Ossipee Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Center Ossipee
- ●One soil character for all of Center Ossipee
- ●Frost dates read at Center Ossipee's scale: Apr 28 to Oct 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Center Ossipee's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Center Ossipee
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Center Ossipee, New Hampshire — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Center Ossipee averages can't show:
We read public map data around Center Ossipee — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Center Ossipee average
How we know this about Center Ossipee
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 Center Ossipee’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 Center Ossipee
When does frost risk typically end in Center Ossipee?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Center Ossipee typically lands around Apr 28, 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 19.
When is the first frost in Center Ossipee?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Center Ossipee typically arrives around Oct 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 2, so the watching starts about Sep 16 — about 171 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Center Ossipee?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Center Ossipee sees about 171 frost-free days — roughly Apr 28 through Oct 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 19 to Oct 2, about 136 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Center Ossipee?
The federal record around Center Ossipee is a meaningful one — 255 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (130), 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 Center Ossipee?
From about Sep 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 Oct 16 (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 16. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Center Ossipee's scale — its 5a band and its 171-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Center Ossipee'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 Center Ossipee’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Center Ossipee's own scale — its own ~171-day season between 28°F freezes, the 638 acres it covers and 255 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Center Ossipee's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Center Ossipee's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 28 and Oct 16 and the ~171-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 255 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Center Ossipee, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Center Ossipee's boundary and the 638 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~171-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Center Ossipee's own centroid, the Northeastern HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Center Ossipee 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 Center Ossipee's 638 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Carroll County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Carroll County
- The growing challenges every New Hampshire grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom New Hampshire
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Carroll County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Center Ossipee's 638 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Center Ossipee you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 638 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 Center Ossipee-wide figureread your own land →