Strafford County, in New Hampshire, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Strafford County lies within the New Hampshire Seacoast — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Strafford County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Strafford County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Strafford County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Strafford County — the short answer
Strafford County, New Hampshire: USDA zone 6a, about 187 days between hard freezes, across 235K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~187
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 235K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 Strafford County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Strafford County's 187-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Strafford County
Across a year, Strafford County accumulates about 2,253 growing degree days above 50°F, about 223 more than the middle New Hampshire county — ahead of 8 of New Hampshire’s 10 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Strafford County
Across Strafford County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Gloucester, Hollis, and Charlton are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.8–5.3, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
8%
Hydric soils
20%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Strafford County
The USDA soil survey maps 36% of Strafford County as well drained — but another 61% drains differently: 21% somewhat excessively drained, 14% poorly drained.
Gloucester is the most extensive named soil at 25% of mapped acres, then Hollis (11%) and Charlton (11%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Strafford County
Each reading below is measured for Strafford County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Strafford County are well drained, in hydrologic group A — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Strafford County runs about pH 4.8–5.3, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 20% of Strafford County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredStrafford County runs about 187 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
The kind of country Strafford County is in
Strafford County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Northeastern Coastal Zone (62%) and Northeastern Highlands (38%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Strafford County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Strafford County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 187-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's New Hampshire profile.
Is it too late to plant in Strafford County?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 19 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 23 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Documented around Strafford County
Spotted lanternfly documented 12 miles from Strafford County, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle7 documented records
- monarch butterfly185 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Strafford County
USGS estimates 285 lb of Glyphosate on Strafford County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (252 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (166 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Strafford County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Strafford County — 679 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 7 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Strafford County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Strafford County
Closest first, across Strafford County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 36 CROWN POINT ROADUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- RAND'S COUNTRY STORE/DOUG'S TOWINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- BUDEL CONSTRUCTION CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- GLENNS GARAGE & STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- NH-RHW 43Nitrate · 1.4 mi
- DENOBLEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- LOWES OF ROCHESTER 2449Brownfields · 2.0 mi
- PETSMART 2333Brownfields · 2.0 mi
- RADFORD MESSENGER INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- LAARS HEATING SYSTEMSToxics Release Inventory · 2.1 mi
- SHELL 167014Underground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- STAPLES 373Brownfields · 2.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Strafford County'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 Strafford County.
Sources Checked
across Strafford County
Severity Distribution
across Strafford County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Strafford County, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 52 sites across Strafford County. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Strafford County
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 Strafford County average
Your land is one point inside Strafford County
Everything above resolves to Strafford County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 235K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Strafford County Average
Strafford County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Strafford County
- ●One soil character for all of Strafford County
- ●Frost dates read at Strafford County's scale: Apr 19 to Oct 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Strafford County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Strafford County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Strafford County, New Hampshire — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Strafford County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Strafford County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Strafford County average
How we know this about Strafford County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Strafford County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Strafford County
When does frost risk typically end in Strafford County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Strafford County typically lands around Apr 19, 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 10.
How long is the growing season in Strafford County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Strafford County sees about 187 frost-free days — roughly Apr 19 through Oct 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 10 to Oct 9, about 152 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Strafford County?
The federal record around Strafford County runs heavier than most — 679 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (329), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out — so test the soil before planting food in the ground, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well in the meantime. Even here, proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what's recorded and where.
Everything above is measured at Strafford County's scale — its 6a band and its 187-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Strafford County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads New Hampshire's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Strafford County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Strafford County's own scale — its own ~187-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 679 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Strafford County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Strafford County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~187-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Strafford CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 679 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Strafford County's boundary and the 235,186 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~187-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Strafford County spans, Northeastern Coastal Zone the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Strafford County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Strafford County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every New Hampshire grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom New Hampshire
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Strafford County — the ~187 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Strafford County's 235,186 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 679 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Strafford Countyread your own land →