Bedford Hills, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Bedford Hills, 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 Bedford Hills 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 Bedford Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Bedford Hills — the short answer
Bedford Hills, New York: USDA zone 7a, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 656 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~226
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 656 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 Bedford Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bedford Hills's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bedford Hills
Each reading below is measured for Bedford Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBedford Hills runs about 226 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
MeasuredBedford Hills 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 Bedford Hills is in
Bedford Hills sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bedford Hills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Westchester County.
What Grows in Bedford Hills
Every plant below cleared Bedford Hills's own zone 7a and its 226-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bedford Hills?
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 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 14 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Bedford Hills
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Bedford Hills, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Bedford Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bedford Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NYSEG BEDFORD HILLS SERVICE CENTERBrownfields · 650 ft
- C T S PHEONIXBrownfields · 900 ft
- GARON FENCE DBA THE IRON WORKSBrownfields · 1200 ft
- BEDFORD TOWN OF HWY DEPTBrownfields · 1300 ft
- B & B AUTO BODYBrownfields · 1900 ft
- BEDFORD HILLS ELEMENTARY SCHOOLBrownfields · 2100 ft
- NYS DEPT OF CORRECTIONAL TACONICBrownfields · 2100 ft
- BEDFORD HILLS CORRECTIONAL FACILITYBrownfields · 2100 ft
- LINEAR ROTARY BEARINGS INCBrownfields · 2200 ft
- BEDFORD HILLS CORRECTIONAL FACILITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- WE 39Nitrate · 2300 ft
- WE5014Nitrate · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bedford Hills'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 Bedford Hills.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bedford Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bedford Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bedford Hills, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Bedford Hills — PFAS (11 sites) and Brownfields (257 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Bedford Hills
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 Bedford Hills average
Your land is one point inside Bedford Hills
Everything above resolves to Bedford Hills as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 656 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 Bedford Hills Average
Bedford Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Bedford Hills
- ●One soil character for all of Bedford Hills
- ●Frost dates read at Bedford Hills's scale: Apr 2 to Nov 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bedford Hills's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bedford Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bedford Hills, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bedford Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bedford Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bedford Hills average
How we know this about Bedford Hills
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 Bedford Hills’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 Bedford Hills
When does frost risk typically end in Bedford Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bedford Hills typically lands around Apr 2, 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 23.
When is the first frost in Bedford Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bedford Hills typically arrives around Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 31, so the watching starts about Oct 15 — about 226 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bedford Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bedford Hills sees about 226 frost-free days — roughly Apr 2 through Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 23 to Oct 31, about 191 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bedford Hills?
The federal record around Bedford Hills runs heavier than most — 477 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (257), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.1 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Bedford Hills?
From about Oct 15 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 14 (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 14. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bedford Hills's scale — its 7a band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bedford Hills'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 Bedford Hills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Bedford Hills's own scale — its own ~226-day season between 28°F freezes, the 656 acres it covers and 477 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bedford Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bedford Hills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 2 and Nov 14 and the ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 477 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bedford Hills, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bedford Hills's boundary and the 656 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~226-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bedford Hills's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Bedford Hillslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Bedford Hills's 656 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Westchester County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Westchester County
- The growing challenges every New York grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom New York
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Westchester County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bedford Hills's 656 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bedford Hills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 656 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 Bedford Hills-wide figureread your own land →
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