Medina, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Medina, 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 Medina 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 Medina — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Medina — the short answer
Medina, New York: USDA zone 6b, about 212 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~212
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 Medina's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Medina's 212-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Medina
Each reading below is measured for Medina itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMedina runs about 212 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
MeasuredMedina 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 Medina is in
Medina sits in the Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Medina's own centroid rather than borrowed from Orleans County.
What Grows in Medina
Every plant below cleared Medina's own zone 6b and its 212-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Medina?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 9 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Medina
Survey cells within 31 miles of Medina checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 32 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Medina
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Medina. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- D & K STORE #149Underground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- SHAFT WAREHOUSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- NEOTECHNOLOGIES INC FORMERLYBrownfields · 800 ft
- SUGAR CREEK STORE #004Underground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- KWIK FILL A0040-138Underground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- THOMAS TIREUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- JAKE'S DYNA SERVICE & SONUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- JAKE & SONUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- V.F.W. POST 1483Underground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- HARTWAY MOTORSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- HARTWAY MOTORS INCBrownfields · 1100 ft
- LYONS COLLISIONBrownfields · 1200 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Medina'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 Medina.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Medina
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Medina
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Medina, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Medina — CAFO (13 sites) and PFAS (4 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Medina
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 Medina average
Your land is one point inside Medina
Everything above resolves to Medina as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Medina Average
Medina Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Medina
- ●One soil character for all of Medina
- ●Frost dates read at Medina's scale: Apr 11 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Medina's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Medina
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Medina, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Medina averages can't show:
We read public map data around Medina — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Medina average
How we know this about Medina
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 Medina’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 Medina
When does frost risk typically end in Medina?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Medina typically lands around Apr 11, 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 2.
When is the first frost in Medina?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Medina typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 212 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Medina?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Medina sees about 212 frost-free days — roughly Apr 11 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 2 to Oct 26, about 177 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Medina?
The federal record around Medina is a meaningful one — 228 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (124), 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 Medina?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Medina's scale — its 6b band and its 212-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Medina'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 Medina’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Medina's own scale — its own ~212-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,111 acres it covers and 228 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Medina's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Medina's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 11 and Nov 9 and the ~212-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 228 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Medina, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Medina's boundary and the 2,111 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~212-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Medina's own centroid, the Eastern Great Lakes LowlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Medina 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 Medina's 2,111 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Orleans County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Orleans 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 Orleans County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Medina's 2,111 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Medina you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,111 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 Medina-wide figureread your own land →
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