Fair Haven, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Fair Haven, 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 Fair Haven 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 Fair Haven — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Fair Haven — the short answer
Fair Haven, New York: USDA zone 6b, about 225 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~225
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Fair Haven's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Fair Haven's 225-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Fair Haven
Each reading below is measured for Fair Haven itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFair Haven runs about 225 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
MeasuredFair Haven 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 Fair Haven is in
Fair Haven sits in the Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Fair Haven's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cayuga County.
What Grows in Fair Haven
Every plant below cleared Fair Haven's own zone 6b and its 225-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Fair Haven?
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 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 17 — 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 Fair Haven
Survey cells within 31 miles of Fair Haven checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 35 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Fair Haven
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Fair Haven. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- JOHN F. LAWTON PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- BAYSIDE GROCERY INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- DANIEL J. HARMONY PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- CRAWFORD'S WEST END LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- TURTLE COVE RESORT AND MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- ANCHOR RESORT AND MARINA INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- CY 265Nitrate · 1.4 mi
- FAIR POINT MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- FAIR HAVEN BEACH STATE PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- DANIELLES OF STERLINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- FAIR HAVEN VILLAGEPFAS · 2.2 mi
- TOWN OF STERLINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Fair Haven'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 Fair Haven.
Total Sites
73
within ~10 miles of Fair Haven
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Fair Haven
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Fair Haven
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Fair Haven, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 46 sites within ~10 miles of Fair Haven. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Fair Haven
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 Fair Haven average
Your land is one point inside Fair Haven
Everything above resolves to Fair Haven as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Fair Haven Average
Fair Haven Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Fair Haven
- ●One soil character for all of Fair Haven
- ●Frost dates read at Fair Haven's scale: Apr 6 to Nov 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Fair Haven's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Fair Haven
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Fair Haven, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Fair Haven averages can't show:
We read public map data around Fair Haven — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Fair Haven average
How we know this about Fair Haven
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 Fair Haven’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 Fair Haven
When does frost risk typically end in Fair Haven?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Fair Haven typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
When is the first frost in Fair Haven?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Fair Haven typically arrives around Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 3, so the watching starts about Oct 18 — about 225 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Fair Haven?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Fair Haven sees about 225 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Nov 3, about 190 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Fair Haven?
The federal record around Fair Haven shows 73 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (46), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Fair Haven?
From about Oct 18 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 17 (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 17. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Fair Haven's scale — its 6b band and its 225-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Fair Haven'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 Fair Haven’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Fair Haven's own scale — its own ~225-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,127 acres it covers and 73 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Fair Haven's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Fair Haven's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Nov 17 and the ~225-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 73 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Fair Haven, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Fair Haven's boundary and the 1,127 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~225-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Fair Haven's own centroid, the Eastern Great Lakes LowlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Fair Haven checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Fair Haven's 1,127 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 Fair Haven's 1,127 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Fair Haven you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,127 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.5 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 Fair Haven-wide figureread your own land →
More in New York
Growing region
Nearby growing guides