New Square, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in New Square, 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 New Square 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 New Square — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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New Square — the short answer
New Square, New York: USDA zone 7a, about 225 days between hard freezes, across 235 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~225
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 235 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 New Square's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against New Square's 225-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in New Square
Each reading below is measured for New Square itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNew Square runs about 225 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
MeasuredNew Square 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 New Square is in
New Square sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at New Square's own centroid rather than borrowed from Rockland County.
What Grows in New Square
Every plant below cleared New Square's own zone 7a and its 225-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in New Square?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 12 — 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 New Square
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from New Square, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near New Square
Closest first, within ~10 miles of New Square. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LANGSAM FAVISHBrownfields · 2500 ft
- JIM SMITH CHEVROLETBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- FRIEDWALD CENTER FOR REHABILITATION & NURSING LLCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- ROCKLAND COUNTY CORRECTIONAL FACILITYBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- ROCKLAND COUNTY HIGHWAY DEPARTMENTBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- A-Z SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- E.R.C.S.D. BUS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- LIZETH CLEANERS IIBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- MOLESTON FIRE DISTRICTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- METRO NORTH RAILROAD PASCACK VALLEY LINEBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- HEMPSTEAD SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- NYS THRUWAY BRIDGE MP 23.62Brownfields · 1.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from New Square'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 New Square.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of New Square
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of New Square
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around New Square, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 28 sites within ~10 miles of New Square. 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.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in New Square
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 New Square average
Your land is one point inside New Square
Everything above resolves to New Square as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 235 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 New Square Average
New Square Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across New Square
- ●One soil character for all of New Square
- ●Frost dates read at New Square's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 12
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not New Square's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in New Square
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in New Square, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that New Square averages can't show:
We read public map data around New Square — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the New Square average
How we know this about New Square
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 New Square’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 New Square
When does frost risk typically end in New Square?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in New Square typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in New Square?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in New Square typically arrives around Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 29, so the watching starts about Oct 13 — about 225 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in New Square?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, New Square sees about 225 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 12, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 29, about 190 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in New Square?
The federal record around New Square runs heavier than most — 1,211 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (532), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 New Square?
From about Oct 13 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 12 (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 12. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at New Square's scale — its 7a band and its 225-day season. Your yard writes its own version of New Square'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 New Square’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at New Square's own scale — its own ~225-day season between 28°F freezes, the 235 acres it covers and 1,211 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- New Square's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- New Square's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 12 and the ~225-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,211 documented contamination sites on the federal record near New Square, the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- New Square's boundary and the 235 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~225-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at New Square's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of New Squarelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so New Square's 235 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 New Square's 235 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of New Square you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 235 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 New Square-wide figureread your own land →
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