Highland Falls, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Highland Falls, 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 Highland Falls 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 Highland Falls — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Highland Falls — the short answer
Highland Falls, New York: USDA zone 7a, about 222 days between hard freezes, across 700 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~222
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 700 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 7a is Highland Falls's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Highland Falls's 222-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Highland Falls
Each reading below is measured for Highland Falls itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHighland Falls runs about 222 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
MeasuredHighland Falls sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Highland Falls is in
Highland Falls sits in the Northeastern Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northern Forests. That is read at Highland Falls's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Orange County is mostly Ridge and Valley. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Highland Falls
Every plant below cleared Highland Falls's own zone 7a and its 222-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Highland Falls?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 5; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 2 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — 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 Highland Falls
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Highland Falls, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Highland Falls
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Highland Falls. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DBA RITE AID #02784Brownfields · 900 ft
- FIRST NIAGARA BANKUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- SACRED HEART CHURCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- VILLAGE OF HIGHLAND FALLSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- DURHAMUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- REGENCY ARMS APARTMENTS ASSOCIATESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- HIGHLAND FALLS SHELLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- HIGHLAND FALLS FEDRL S&L ASSOCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- HIGHLAND FALLS FIRE DEPARTMENT, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- HIGHLAND FALLS MIDDLE SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- HIGHLAND FALLS ELEM. SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- ALS SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Highland Falls'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 Highland Falls.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Highland Falls
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Highland Falls
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Highland Falls, PFAS runs higher than the national average — 9 sites within ~10 miles of Highland Falls. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Highland Falls
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 Highland Falls average
Your land is one point inside Highland Falls
Everything above resolves to Highland Falls as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 700 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 Highland Falls Average
Highland Falls Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Highland Falls
- ●One soil character for all of Highland Falls
- ●Frost dates read at Highland Falls's scale: Apr 2 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Highland Falls's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Highland Falls
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Highland Falls, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Highland Falls averages can't show:
We read public map data around Highland Falls — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Highland Falls average
How we know this about Highland Falls
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 Highland Falls’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 Highland Falls
When does frost risk typically end in Highland Falls?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Highland Falls typically lands around Apr 2, 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 23.
When is the first frost in Highland Falls?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Highland Falls typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 222 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Highland Falls?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Highland Falls sees about 222 frost-free days — roughly Apr 2 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 23 to Oct 27, about 187 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Highland Falls?
The federal record around Highland Falls runs heavier than most — 674 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (357), the nearest Brownfields 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 Highland Falls?
From about Oct 11 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 10 (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 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Highland Falls's scale — its 7a band and its 222-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Highland Falls'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 Highland Falls’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Highland Falls's own scale — its own ~222-day season between 28°F freezes, the 700 acres it covers and 674 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Highland Falls's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Highland Falls's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 2 and Nov 10 and the ~222-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 674 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Highland Falls, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Highland Falls's boundary and the 700 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~222-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Highland Falls sits in the Northeastern Highlands — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Highland Fallslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Highland Falls's 700 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Orange County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Orange 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 Orange County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Highland Falls's 700 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Highland Falls you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 700 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Highland Falls-wide figureread your own land →