Nassau County, in New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
On paper, cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Nassau County lies within the Long Island / North Fork — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Nassau County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Nassau 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 Nassau County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Nassau County — the short answer
Nassau County, New York: USDA zone 7b, about 244 days between hard freezes, across 182K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~244
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 182K 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 7b is Nassau County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Nassau County's 244-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Nassau County
Across a year, Nassau County accumulates about 3,277 growing degree days above 50°F, about 1,041 more than the middle New York county — ahead of 56 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 Nassau County
Across Nassau County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Riverhead, Montauk, and Ipswich are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.8–5.6, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group A soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
15%
Hydric soils
12%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Nassau County
The USDA soil survey maps 21% of Nassau County as well drained — but another 13% drains differently: 5% very poorly drained, 4% moderately well drained.
Riverhead is the most extensive named soil at 27% of mapped acres, then Montauk (26%) and Ipswich (8%).
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 Nassau County
Each reading below is measured for Nassau 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 Nassau 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 Nassau County runs about pH 4.8–5.6, 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
MeasuredNassau County runs about 244 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
MeasuredNassau County sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Nassau County is in
Nassau County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Northeastern Coastal Zone (79%) and Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens (21%). 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 Nassau County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Nassau County's own USDA zone 7b and its own 244-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 Nassau County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 24 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Nassau County
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Nassau County, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle9 documented records
- monarch butterfly978 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Nassau County
USGS estimates 317 lb of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s on Nassau County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor-s (310 lb) and Atrazine (85 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 Nassau County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Nassau County — 5,125 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 48 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Nassau 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 Nassau County
Closest first, across Nassau County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- N 11604. 1Nitrate · 500 ft
- NASSAU COMMUNITY COLLEGEBrownfields · 1000 ft
- N 11832. 1Nitrate · 1000 ft
- N 11617. 1Nitrate · 1100 ft
- N 11605. 1Nitrate · 1100 ft
- TRIGEN CENTRL UTILITY PLT - MITCHL FIELDBrownfields · 1100 ft
- N 11831. 1Nitrate · 1300 ft
- N 11618. 1Nitrate · 1300 ft
- N 11829. 1Nitrate · 1400 ft
- N 11830. 1Nitrate · 1500 ft
- CONTINENTAL EXTRUSION CORPToxics Release Inventory · 1500 ft
- N 11239. 1Nitrate · 1500 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Nassau 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 Nassau County.
Severity Distribution
across Nassau County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Nassau County, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 3,138 sites across Nassau County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
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 Nassau 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 Nassau County average
Your land is one point inside Nassau County
Everything above resolves to Nassau County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 182K 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 Nassau County Average
Nassau County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Nassau County
- ●One soil character for all of Nassau County
- ●Frost dates read at Nassau County's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Nassau County's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Nassau County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Nassau County, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Nassau County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Nassau County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Nassau County average
How we know this about Nassau 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 Nassau County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Nassau County
When does frost risk typically end in Nassau County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Nassau County typically lands around Mar 25, 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 15.
How long is the growing season in Nassau County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Nassau County sees about 244 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Nov 10, about 209 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Nassau County?
The federal record around Nassau County runs heavier than most — 5,125 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (3,138), the nearest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile 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 Nassau County's scale — its 7b band and its 244-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Nassau 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 Nassau County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Nassau County's own scale — its own ~244-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 5,125 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Nassau County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Nassau County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~244-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Nassau CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 5,125 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile outFederal environmental registers
- Nassau County's boundary and the 182,108 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~244-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Nassau County spans, Northeastern Coastal Zone the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Nassau County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Nassau 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 Nassau County — the ~244 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 Nassau County's 182,108 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 5,125 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 Nassau Countyread your own land →