Hammond, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Hammond, 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 Hammond 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 Hammond — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Hammond — the short answer
Hammond, New York: USDA zone 5a, about 204 days between hard freezes, across 375 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~204
- 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 Hammond's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hammond's 204-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Hammond
Each reading below is measured for Hammond itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHammond runs about 204 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
MeasuredHammond 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 Hammond is in
Hammond sits in the Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Hammond's own centroid rather than borrowed from St. Lawrence County.
What Grows in Hammond
Every plant below cleared Hammond's own zone 5a and its 204-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Hammond?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 14 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 4 — 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 Hammond
Survey cells within 31 miles of Hammond checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 86 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Hammond
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Hammond. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BLACK LAKE MOTORSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- HAMMOND CENTRAL SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- BLACK LAKE SUPPLY INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- LEWIS & LEWIS, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- HAMMOND SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- HAMMOND ENTERPRISESUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- NED'S GENERAL STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- CITIZENS TELEPHONE CO., INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- Nelson Farm DepositMining · 0.6 mi
- NATIONAL GRID-HEUVELTON SUBSTABrownfields · 1.0 mi
- PITCHER FARMSCAFO · 1.9 mi
- Mineral Point DepositMining · 2.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hammond'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 Hammond.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Hammond
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Hammond
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hammond, Mining runs higher than the national average — 32 sites within ~10 miles of Hammond. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Mining: Mining sites — both historic and active — can leach heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury) into soil and water for centuries after operations cease.
Test soil for heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury) — this is essential near any mining site.
Check your specific parcel in Hammond
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 Hammond average
Your land is one point inside Hammond
Everything above resolves to Hammond 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 Hammond Average
Hammond Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Hammond
- ●One soil character for all of Hammond
- ●Frost dates read at Hammond's scale: Apr 14 to Nov 4
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hammond's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Hammond
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hammond, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hammond averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hammond — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hammond average
How we know this about Hammond
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 Hammond’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 Hammond
When does frost risk typically end in Hammond?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hammond typically lands around Apr 14, 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 5.
When is the first frost in Hammond?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Hammond typically arrives around Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 21, so the watching starts about Oct 5 — about 204 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Hammond?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hammond sees about 204 frost-free days — roughly Apr 14 through Nov 4, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 5 to Oct 21, about 169 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hammond?
The federal record around Hammond runs heavier than most — 77 documented sites, mostly Mining entries (32), 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.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Hammond?
From about Oct 5 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 4 (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 4. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Hammond's scale — its 5a band and its 204-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hammond'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 Hammond’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Hammond's own scale — its own ~204-day season between 28°F freezes, the 375 acres it covers and 77 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hammond's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hammond's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 14 and Nov 4 and the ~204-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 77 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Hammond, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Hammond's boundary and the 375 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~204-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Hammond's own centroid, the Eastern Great Lakes LowlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Hammond 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 Hammond's 375 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom St. Lawrence County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom St. Lawrence 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 St. Lawrence County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Hammond's 375 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Hammond 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 0.2 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 Hammond-wide figureread your own land →