Felts Mills, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
The conditions favor cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Felts Mills, 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 Felts Mills 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 Felts Mills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Felts Mills — the short answer
Felts Mills, New York: USDA zone 5a, about 182 days between hard freezes, across 375 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~182
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 375 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 5a is Felts Mills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Felts Mills's 182-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Felts Mills
Each reading below is measured for Felts Mills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFelts Mills runs about 182 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
MeasuredFelts Mills sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a.
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 Felts Mills is in
Felts Mills sits in the Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Felts Mills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Jefferson County.
What Grows in Felts Mills
Every plant below cleared Felts Mills's own zone 5a and its 182-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Felts Mills?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 23 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 22 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Documented around Felts Mills
Survey cells within 31 miles of Felts Mills checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 68 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Felts Mills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Felts Mills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- O'DONNELL'S MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- J 267Nitrate · 800 ft
- HARMER'S GAS STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- DOLLAR GENERAL STORE #6904Brownfields · 0.7 mi
- BLACK RIVER ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- STEWART'S SHOPS CORP. #428Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- BLACK RIVER ELECTRIC GENERATING FACILITYToxics Release Inventory · 1.5 mi
- BLACK RIVER ELECTRIC GENERATING FACILITYBrownfields · 1.5 mi
- NYSDOT BIN 1000540Brownfields · 1.9 mi
- WASTE MANAGEMENT OF NEW YORK, LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- AGWAY ENERGY PRODUCTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- FORT DRUMSuperfund · 2.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Felts Mills'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 Felts Mills.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Felts Mills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Felts Mills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Felts Mills, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Felts Mills — CAFO (9 sites) and PFAS (4 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Felts Mills
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 Felts Mills average
Your land is one point inside Felts Mills
Everything above resolves to Felts Mills as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 375 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 Felts Mills Average
Felts Mills Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Felts Mills
- ●One soil character for all of Felts Mills
- ●Frost dates read at Felts Mills's scale: Apr 23 to Oct 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Felts Mills's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Felts Mills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Felts Mills, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Felts Mills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Felts Mills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Felts Mills average
How we know this about Felts Mills
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 Felts Mills’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 Felts Mills
When does frost risk typically end in Felts Mills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Felts Mills typically lands around Apr 23, 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 14.
When is the first frost in Felts Mills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Felts Mills typically arrives around Oct 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 8, so the watching starts about Sep 22 — about 182 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Felts Mills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Felts Mills sees about 182 frost-free days — roughly Apr 23 through Oct 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 14 to Oct 8, about 147 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Felts Mills?
The federal record around Felts Mills is a meaningful one — 450 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (230), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Felts Mills?
From about Sep 22 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 Oct 22 (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 Oct 22. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Felts Mills's scale — its 5a band and its 182-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Felts Mills'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 Felts Mills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Felts Mills's own scale — its own ~182-day season between 28°F freezes, the 375 acres it covers and 450 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Felts Mills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Felts Mills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 23 and Oct 22 and the ~182-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 450 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Felts Mills, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Felts Mills's boundary and the 375 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~182-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Felts Mills's own centroid, the Eastern Great Lakes LowlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Felts Mills 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 Felts Mills's 375 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Jefferson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Jefferson 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 Jefferson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Felts Mills's 375 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Felts Mills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 375 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Felts Mills-wide figureread your own land →