Mooers, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
On paper, cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Mooers, 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 Mooers 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 Mooers — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Mooers — the short answer
Mooers, New York: USDA zone 5a, about 180 days between hard freezes, across 777 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~180
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 777 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 5a is Mooers's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mooers's 180-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Mooers
Each reading below is measured for Mooers itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMooers runs about 180 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredMooers sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a.
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 Mooers is in
Mooers sits in the Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Mooers's own centroid rather than borrowed from Clinton County.
What Grows in Mooers
Every plant below cleared Mooers's own zone 5a and its 180-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Mooers?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 19 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Documented around Mooers
Survey cells within 31 miles of Mooers checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 87 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Mooers
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Mooers. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MOUNTAIN MART #101 INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- MOOERS ELEMENTARY SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- NYSDOT BIN 1094080Brownfields · 0.5 mi
- U.S. MOOERS BORDER INS. STA.Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- ST JOSEPHS CHURCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- LARATO FARMS, INC.CAFO · 0.8 mi
- CL 135Nitrate · 1.9 mi
- CL 136Nitrate · 1.9 mi
- CINDY'S COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- RJ'S CORNER MARKETUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- CL 128Nitrate · 2.4 mi
- AGWAY ENERGY PRODUCTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mooers'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 Mooers.
Total Sites
132
within ~10 miles of Mooers
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
15 concentrated animal feeding operations
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Mooers
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Mooers
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mooers, CAFO runs higher than the national average — 15 sites within ~10 miles of Mooers. 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.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check your specific parcel in Mooers
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 Mooers average
Your land is one point inside Mooers
Everything above resolves to Mooers as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 777 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 Mooers Average
Mooers Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Mooers
- ●One soil character for all of Mooers
- ●Frost dates read at Mooers's scale: Apr 22 to Oct 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mooers's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Mooers
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mooers, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mooers averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mooers — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mooers average
How we know this about Mooers
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 Mooers’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 Mooers
When does frost risk typically end in Mooers?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mooers typically lands around Apr 22, 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 13.
When is the first frost in Mooers?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Mooers typically arrives around Oct 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 5, so the watching starts about Sep 19 — about 180 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Mooers?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mooers sees about 180 frost-free days — roughly Apr 22 through Oct 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 13 to Oct 5, about 145 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mooers?
The federal record around Mooers shows 132 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (67), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Mooers?
From about Sep 19 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 Oct 19 (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 Oct 19. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Mooers's scale — its 5a band and its 180-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mooers'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 Mooers’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Mooers's own scale — its own ~180-day season between 28°F freezes, the 777 acres it covers and 132 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mooers's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mooers's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 22 and Oct 19 and the ~180-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 132 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Mooers, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Mooers's boundary and the 777 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~180-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Mooers's own centroid, the Eastern Great Lakes LowlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Mooers 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 Mooers's 777 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Clinton County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Clinton 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 Clinton County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Mooers's 777 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Mooers you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 777 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Mooers-wide figureread your own land →