Niagara County, in New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Niagara County lies within the Niagara Escarpment and the Lake Ontario Fruit Belt — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Niagara County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Niagara 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 Niagara County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Niagara County — the short answer
Niagara County, New York: USDA zone 6b, about 216 days between hard freezes, across 334K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~216
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 334K 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 6b is Niagara County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Niagara County's 216-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Niagara County
Across a year, Niagara County accumulates about 2,530 growing degree days above 50°F, about 294 more than the middle New York county — ahead of 50 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 Niagara County
Across Niagara County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Appleton, Hilton, and Odessa are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally somewhat poorly drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.1–6.5, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Somewhat poorly drained
Prime farmland
25%
Hydric soils
22%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Niagara County
The USDA soil survey maps 46% of Niagara County as somewhat poorly drained — but another 51% drains differently: 23% moderately well drained, 12% poorly drained.
Appleton is the most extensive named soil at 11% of mapped acres, then Hilton (9%) and Odessa (9%).
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 Niagara County
Each reading below is measured for Niagara 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 Niagara County are somewhat poorly drained, in hydrologic group C/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 Niagara County runs about pH 6.1–6.5, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredNiagara County runs about 216 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
MeasuredNiagara County 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 Niagara County is in
Niagara County sits in the Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Niagara County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Niagara County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 216-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 Niagara County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 15; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 12 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Niagara County
Spotted lanternfly documented 19 miles from Niagara County, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle1 documented records
- monarch butterfly2 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Niagara County
USGS estimates 53,542 lb of Glyphosate on Niagara County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (45,822 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (23,943 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 Niagara County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Niagara County — 1,149 documented sites across 8 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 46 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Niagara 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 Niagara County
Closest first, across Niagara County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CAMBRIA WATER DISTRICTPFAS · 25 ft
- WILSON TOWN WATER DISTRICTPFAS · 25 ft
- TOWN OF WILSON HIGHWAY GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- NIAGARA COUNTY BIN 3328930Brownfields · 1.7 mi
- PFEIFFER FOODS INCToxics Release Inventory · 1.7 mi
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE #14797Brownfields · 1.8 mi
- R SHARPE INDUSTRIES INCBrownfields · 1.8 mi
- RANSOMVILLE BUS LINES, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- KROWINSKI PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- WILSON CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- WILSON HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 2.5 mi
- WILSON KEYSTONEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Niagara 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 Niagara County.
Severity Distribution
across Niagara County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Niagara County, two things run higher than the national average across Niagara County — Superfund (46 sites) and CAFO (17 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check your specific parcel in Niagara 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 Niagara County average
Your land is one point inside Niagara County
Everything above resolves to Niagara County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 334K 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 Niagara County Average
Niagara County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Niagara County
- ●One soil character for all of Niagara County
- ●Frost dates read at Niagara County's scale: Apr 12 to Nov 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Niagara County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Niagara County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Niagara County, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Niagara County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Niagara County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Niagara County average
How we know this about Niagara 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 Niagara County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Niagara County
When does frost risk typically end in Niagara County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Niagara County typically lands around Apr 12, 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 3.
How long is the growing season in Niagara County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Niagara County sees about 216 frost-free days — roughly Apr 12 through Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 3 to Oct 31, about 181 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Niagara County?
The federal record around Niagara County runs heavier than most — 1,149 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (510), the nearest PFAS 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 Niagara County's scale — its 6b band and its 216-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Niagara 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 Niagara County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Niagara County's own scale — its own ~216-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 1,149 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Niagara County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Niagara County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~216-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Niagara CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 1,149 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile outFederal environmental registers
- Niagara County's boundary and the 334,303 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~216-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Niagara County sitting wholly inside the Eastern Great Lakes LowlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Niagara County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Niagara 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 Niagara County — the ~216 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 Niagara County's 334,303 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 1,149 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 Niagara Countyread your own land →