Menands, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Menands, 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 Menands 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 Menands — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Menands — the short answer
Menands, New York: USDA zone 6a, about 209 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~209
- 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 6a is Menands's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Menands's 209-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Menands
Each reading below is measured for Menands itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMenands runs about 209 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
MeasuredMenands sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Menands is in
Menands sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Menands's own centroid rather than borrowed from Albany County.
What Grows in Menands
Every plant below cleared Menands's own zone 6a and its 209-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Menands?
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 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 3 — 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 Menands
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Menands, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Menands
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Menands. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MCCASLAND TRUCK CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 100 ft
- BLUMBERG EXCELSIOR INC NEBrownfields · 250 ft
- DAN E. INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- LEASEWAY TRANSPORTATION LEASINUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- TOUGHER INDUSTRIES INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- GUILDERLAND SERVICE AREAUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- FORMER MENANDS SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- STEWARTS SHOPS #274Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- MENANDS VILLAGEPFAS · 2000 ft
- MORGAN LINEN SERVICEBrownfields · 2100 ft
- MORGAN LINEN SERVICE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- BORDEN INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Menands'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 Menands.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Menands
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Menands
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.
- •TRI facilities report what they release. Check the wind — downwind beds catch more of it.
Check your specific parcel in Menands
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 Menands average
Your land is one point inside Menands
Everything above resolves to Menands 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 Menands Average
Menands Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Menands
- ●One soil character for all of Menands
- ●Frost dates read at Menands's scale: Apr 8 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Menands's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Menands
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Menands, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Menands averages can't show:
We read public map data around Menands — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Menands average
How we know this about Menands
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 Menands’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 Menands
When does frost risk typically end in Menands?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Menands typically lands around Apr 8, 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 29.
When is the first frost in Menands?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Menands typically arrives around Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 20, so the watching starts about Oct 4 — about 209 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Menands?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Menands sees about 209 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 20, about 174 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Menands?
The federal record around Menands is a meaningful one — 2,039 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,043), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Menands?
From about Oct 4 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 3 (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 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Menands's scale — its 6a band and its 209-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Menands'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 Menands’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Menands's own scale — its own ~209-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,960 acres it covers and 2,039 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Menands's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Menands's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 8 and Nov 3 and the ~209-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,039 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Menands, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Menands's boundary and the 1,960 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~209-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Menands's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Menandslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Menands's 1,960 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Albany County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Albany 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 Albany County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Menands's 1,960 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Menands you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,960 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Menands-wide figureread your own land →
More in New York
Wider growing context
What grows across New YorkMenands sits outside our named growing regions, so New York as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides