Harbor Hills, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, 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 Harbor Hills, 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 Harbor Hills 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 Harbor Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Harbor Hills — the short answer
Harbor Hills, New York: USDA zone 7b, about 255 days between hard freezes, across 76 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~255
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 76 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 7b is Harbor Hills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Harbor Hills's 255-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Harbor Hills
Each reading below is measured for Harbor Hills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHarbor Hills runs about 255 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
MeasuredHarbor Hills 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 Harbor Hills is in
Harbor Hills sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Harbor Hills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Nassau County.
What Grows in Harbor Hills
Every plant below cleared Harbor Hills's own zone 7b and its 255-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Harbor Hills?
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 Feb 20; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 20 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 30 — 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 Harbor Hills
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Harbor Hills, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Harbor Hills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Harbor Hills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- N 6003. 1Nitrate · 800 ft
- N 8933. 1Nitrate · 1800 ft
- N 1298. 2Nitrate · 2600 ft
- N 687. 2Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- N 6972. 1Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- GETTY #58027Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- STANTON CLEANERS AREA GROUND WATER CONTAMINATIONBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- STANTON CLEANERS AREA GROUND WATER CONTAMINATIONSuperfund · 0.9 mi
- SOWA DRY CLEANING & LAUNDRYBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- NU-CLEAR CLEANERSBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- DEEPDALE GARDENS CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- 2-60 ARLEIGH RDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Harbor Hills'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 Harbor Hills.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Harbor Hills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Harbor Hills
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Harbor Hills
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 Harbor Hills average
Your land is one point inside Harbor Hills
Everything above resolves to Harbor Hills as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 76 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 Harbor Hills Average
Harbor Hills Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Harbor Hills
- ●One soil character for all of Harbor Hills
- ●Frost dates read at Harbor Hills's scale: Mar 20 to Nov 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Harbor Hills's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Harbor Hills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Harbor Hills, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Harbor Hills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Harbor Hills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Harbor Hills average
How we know this about Harbor Hills
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 Harbor Hills’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 Harbor Hills
When does frost risk typically end in Harbor Hills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Harbor Hills typically lands around Mar 20, 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 10.
When is the first frost in Harbor Hills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Harbor Hills typically arrives around Nov 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 16, so the watching starts about Oct 31 — about 255 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Harbor Hills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Harbor Hills sees about 255 frost-free days — roughly Mar 20 through Nov 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 10 to Nov 16, about 220 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Harbor Hills?
The federal record around Harbor Hills runs heavier than most — 10,589 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (5,050), the nearest Nitrate 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 Harbor Hills?
From about Oct 31 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 30 (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 30. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Harbor Hills's scale — its 7b band and its 255-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Harbor Hills'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 Harbor Hills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Harbor Hills's own scale — its own ~255-day season between 28°F freezes, the 76 acres it covers and 10,589 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Harbor Hills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Harbor Hills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 20 and Nov 30 and the ~255-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 10,589 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Harbor Hills, the closest Nitrate record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Harbor Hills's boundary and the 76 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~255-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Harbor Hills's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Harbor Hillslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Harbor Hills's 76 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Nassau County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Nassau 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 Nassau County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Harbor Hills's 76 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Harbor Hills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 76 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate 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 Harbor Hills-wide figureread your own land →