Plainedge, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Growers here do well with cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Plainedge, 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 Plainedge 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 Plainedge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Plainedge — the short answer
Plainedge, New York: USDA zone 7b, about 240 days between hard freezes, across 899 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~240
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 899 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 7b is Plainedge's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Plainedge's 240-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Plainedge
Each reading below is measured for Plainedge itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPlainedge runs about 240 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
MeasuredPlainedge sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Plainedge is in
Plainedge sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Plainedge's own centroid rather than borrowed from Nassau County.
What Grows in Plainedge
Every plant below cleared Plainedge's own zone 7b and its 240-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Plainedge?
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 Feb 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 27 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 22 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Plainedge
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Plainedge, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Plainedge
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Plainedge. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NEW ISLAND HOSPITALBrownfields · 850 ft
- N 8522. 1Nitrate · 1100 ft
- N 4463. 1Nitrate · 1100 ft
- N 9929. 1Nitrate · 1400 ft
- SPEEDWAY 7648Brownfields · 1600 ft
- SPEEDWAY 7850Brownfields · 1600 ft
- SARANT ETTABrownfields · 1700 ft
- XTRA FUELSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- N 8004. 1Nitrate · 1800 ft
- WALGREENS 4116Brownfields · 2100 ft
- THIS OLD GARAGEBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- FROG HOLLOW COLLISION INCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Plainedge'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 Plainedge.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Plainedge
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Plainedge
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Plainedge, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Plainedge — Nitrate (2,722 sites) and Superfund (64 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Plainedge
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 Plainedge average
Your land is one point inside Plainedge
Everything above resolves to Plainedge as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 899 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 Plainedge Average
Plainedge Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Plainedge
- ●One soil character for all of Plainedge
- ●Frost dates read at Plainedge's scale: Mar 27 to Nov 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Plainedge's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Plainedge
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Plainedge, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Plainedge averages can't show:
We read public map data around Plainedge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Plainedge average
How we know this about Plainedge
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 Plainedge’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 Plainedge
When does frost risk typically end in Plainedge?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Plainedge typically lands around Mar 27, 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 17.
When is the first frost in Plainedge?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Plainedge typically arrives around Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 8, so the watching starts about Oct 23 — about 240 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Plainedge?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Plainedge sees about 240 frost-free days — roughly Mar 27 through Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 17 to Nov 8, about 205 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Plainedge?
The federal record around Plainedge runs heavier than most — 4,791 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (2,722), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Plainedge?
From about Oct 23 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 22 (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 22. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Plainedge's scale — its 7b band and its 240-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Plainedge'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 Plainedge’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Plainedge's own scale — its own ~240-day season between 28°F freezes, the 899 acres it covers and 4,791 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Plainedge's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Plainedge's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 27 and Nov 22 and the ~240-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 4,791 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Plainedge, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Plainedge's boundary and the 899 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~240-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Plainedge's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Plainedgelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Plainedge's 899 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Nassau County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Nassau 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 Nassau County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Plainedge's 899 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Plainedge you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 899 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Plainedge-wide figureread your own land →