Cayuga, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Cayuga, 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 Cayuga 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 Cayuga — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Cayuga — the short answer
Cayuga, New York: USDA zone 6b, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 578 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 578 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 6b is Cayuga's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Cayuga's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Cayuga
Each reading below is measured for Cayuga itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCayuga runs about 218 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
MeasuredCayuga sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Cayuga is in
Cayuga sits in the Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Cayuga's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cayuga County.
What Grows in Cayuga
Every plant below cleared Cayuga's own zone 6b and its 218-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Cayuga?
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 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Cayuga
Spotted lanternfly documented 14 miles from Cayuga, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Cayuga
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Cayuga. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FAMILY DOLLAR STORE 2148Brownfields · 0.8 mi
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE #6337Brownfields · 0.8 mi
- NEW YORK CHIROPRACTIC COLLEGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- FORMER HY-WAY #65Underground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- RYAN MARTIN FARMCAFO · 1.8 mi
- NOBLE PUMP STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- GARDEN PUMP STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- SENECA FALLS QUICKWAY #38Underground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- BRIDEPORT PUMP STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- NYS OPRHP - CAYUGA LAKE STATE PARKBrownfields · 2.0 mi
- NYS OFFICE OF PARKS, REC & HIST PRESUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- TURNPIKE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Cayuga'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 Cayuga.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Cayuga
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Cayuga
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Cayuga, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Cayuga — CAFO (25 sites) and Superfund (9 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Cayuga
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 Cayuga average
Your land is one point inside Cayuga
Everything above resolves to Cayuga as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 578 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 Cayuga Average
Cayuga Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Cayuga
- ●One soil character for all of Cayuga
- ●Frost dates read at Cayuga's scale: Apr 7 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Cayuga's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Cayuga
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Cayuga, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Cayuga averages can't show:
We read public map data around Cayuga — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Cayuga average
How we know this about Cayuga
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 Cayuga’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 Cayuga
When does frost risk typically end in Cayuga?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Cayuga typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
When is the first frost in Cayuga?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Cayuga typically arrives around Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 28, so the watching starts about Oct 12 — about 218 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Cayuga?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Cayuga sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 28, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Cayuga?
The federal record around Cayuga is a meaningful one — 431 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (199), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.8 miles 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 Cayuga?
From about Oct 12 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 11 (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 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Cayuga's scale — its 6b band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Cayuga'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 Cayuga’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Cayuga's own scale — its own ~218-day season between 28°F freezes, the 578 acres it covers and 431 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Cayuga's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Cayuga's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 7 and Nov 11 and the ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 431 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Cayuga, the closest Brownfields record about 0.8 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Cayuga's boundary and the 578 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Cayuga's own centroid, the Eastern Great Lakes LowlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Cayugalydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Cayuga's 578 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cayuga County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cayuga 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 Cayuga County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Cayuga's 578 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Cayuga you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 578 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.8 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 Cayuga-wide figureread your own land →
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