Broome County, in New York, 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.
Expect cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Broome County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Broome 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 Broome County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Broome County — the short answer
Broome County, New York: USDA zone 6a, about 174 days between hard freezes, across 452K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 29
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~174
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 452K 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 Broome County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Broome County's 174-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Broome County
Across a year, Broome County accumulates about 2,131 growing degree days above 50°F, about 105 fewer than the middle New York county — ahead of 25 of New York’s 62 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 Broome County
Across Broome County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Volusia, Mardin, and Lordstown are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally somewhat poorly drained with a channery silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.5–6.0, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Somewhat poorly drained
Prime farmland
5%
Hydric soils
4%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Broome County
The USDA soil survey maps 39% of Broome County as somewhat poorly drained — but another 60% drains differently: 38% well drained, 17% moderately well drained.
Volusia is the most extensive named soil at 38% of mapped acres, then Mardin (14%) and Lordstown (13%).
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 Broome County
Each reading below is measured for Broome 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 Broome County are somewhat poorly drained, in hydrologic group D — ground that sheds water slowly.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Broome County runs about pH 5.5–6.0, 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
Season length
MeasuredBroome County runs about 174 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
MeasuredBroome County 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 Broome County is in
Broome County sits in the Northern Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Broome County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Broome County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 174-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 York profile.
Is it too late to plant in Broome County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Apr 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 29 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 20 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even past midsummer there is room for a true fall garden here, and garlic planted near the close carries the momentum into next year.
Documented around Broome County
Spotted lanternfly documented 7 miles from Broome County, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle2 documented records
- monarch butterfly59 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Broome County
USGS estimates 4,378 lb of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s on Broome County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor-s (3,997 lb) and Glyphosate (3,902 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 Broome County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Broome County — 1,141 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 19 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Broome 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 Broome County
Closest first, across Broome County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TOWN OF FENTONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- PORT CRANE FIRE CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- FASTRAC 280Brownfields · 1600 ft
- KWIK FILL MO356 / 356Underground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- FASTRAC MARKET #280-PORT CRANEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- GRAVEL BEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- NYSDOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- NYSDOT BINS 1054851 &1054852Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- TRI-CITIES BARREL CO., INC.Superfund · 1.0 mi
- RAPP PETROLEUM CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- TRI-CITIES BARREL CO., INC.Brownfields · 1.2 mi
- ECO-INTERNATIONAL LLCBrownfields · 1.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Broome 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 Broome County.
Severity Distribution
across Broome County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Broome County, two things run higher than the national average across Broome County — CAFO (13 sites) and Superfund (19 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Broome 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 Broome County average
Your land is one point inside Broome County
Everything above resolves to Broome County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 452K 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 Broome County Average
Broome County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Broome County
- ●One soil character for all of Broome County
- ●Frost dates read at Broome County's scale: Apr 29 to Oct 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Broome County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Broome County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Broome County, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Broome County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Broome County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Broome County average
How we know this about Broome 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 Broome County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Broome County
When does frost risk typically end in Broome County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Broome County typically lands around Apr 29, 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 20.
How long is the growing season in Broome County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Broome County sees about 174 frost-free days — roughly Apr 29 through Oct 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 20 to Oct 6, about 139 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Broome County?
The federal record around Broome County runs heavier than most — 1,141 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (539), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Broome County's scale — its 6a band and its 174-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Broome 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 York's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Broome County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Broome County's own scale — its own ~174-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,141 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Broome County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Broome County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~174-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Broome CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,141 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Broome County's boundary and the 451,616 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~174-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Broome County sitting wholly inside the Northern Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Broome County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Broome County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every New York grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom New York
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Broome County — the ~174 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 Broome County's 451,616 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,141 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 Broome Countyread your own land →