Montebello, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
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 Montebello, 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 Montebello 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 Montebello — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Montebello — the short answer
Montebello, New York: USDA zone 7a, about 216 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~216
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Montebello's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Montebello's 216-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Montebello
Each reading below is measured for Montebello itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMontebello runs about 216 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
MeasuredMontebello 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 Montebello is in
Montebello sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Montebello's own centroid rather than borrowed from Rockland County.
What Grows in Montebello
Every plant below cleared Montebello's own zone 7a and its 216-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Montebello?
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 Mar 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 6 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Montebello
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Montebello, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Montebello
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Montebello. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- US BUS CORPBrownfields · 300 ft
- SUFFERN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- SUFFERN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 2100 ft
- TOWN OF RAMAPO - SPOOK ROCK GOLF COURSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- MONTEBELLO ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- CDX DIAGNOSTICSBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- COLUMBIA GAS TRANSMISSION CGTC - RT 202 MEASURING STATIONBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- VIOLA ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- SUFFERN MIDDLE SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- TALLMAN IUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- RO 513Nitrate · 1.1 mi
- AIRMONT GULFUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Montebello'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 Montebello.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Montebello
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Montebello
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Montebello, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Montebello — Superfund (36 sites) and PFAS (12 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Montebello
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 Montebello average
Your land is one point inside Montebello
Everything above resolves to Montebello as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Montebello Average
Montebello Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Montebello
- ●One soil character for all of Montebello
- ●Frost dates read at Montebello's scale: Apr 4 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Montebello's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Montebello
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Montebello, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Montebello averages can't show:
We read public map data around Montebello — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Montebello average
How we know this about Montebello
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 Montebello’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 Montebello
When does frost risk typically end in Montebello?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Montebello typically lands around Apr 4, 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 25.
When is the first frost in Montebello?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Montebello typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 216 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Montebello?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Montebello sees about 216 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 23, about 181 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Montebello?
The federal record around Montebello runs heavier than most — 1,336 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (579), the nearest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Montebello?
From about Oct 7 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Montebello's scale — its 7a band and its 216-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Montebello'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 Montebello’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Montebello's own scale — its own ~216-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,765 acres it covers and 1,336 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Montebello's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Montebello's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Nov 6 and the ~216-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,336 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Montebello, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Montebello's boundary and the 2,765 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~216-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Montebello's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Montebellolydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Montebello's 2,765 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Rockland County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Rockland 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 Rockland County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Montebello's 2,765 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Montebello you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,765 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Montebello-wide figureread your own land →
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