Prospect, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Prospect, 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 Prospect 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 Prospect — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Prospect — the short answer
Prospect, New York: USDA zone 5a, about 173 days between hard freezes, across 275 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 29
- 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
- ~173
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 275 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 Prospect's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Prospect's 173-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Prospect
Each reading below is measured for Prospect itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredProspect runs about 173 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
MeasuredProspect 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 Prospect is in
Prospect sits in the Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Prospect's own centroid rather than borrowed from Oneida County.
What Grows in Prospect
Every plant below cleared Prospect's own zone 5a and its 173-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Prospect?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Apr 1; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 29 (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. As the window narrows, the plantings just get faster — fall brassicas, then greens, then garlic to finish.
Documented around Prospect
Survey cells within 31 miles of Prospect checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 48 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Prospect
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Prospect. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- COU'S AUTOBrownfields · 350 ft
- HINCKLEY RESERVOIR WTPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- OE1459Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- HE 374Nitrate · 1.6 mi
- RUSSIA(T) HIGHWAY DEPT.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- HYER'S GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- B&R, E-Z STOP, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- NYS DOTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- ERIE BLVD HYDROPOWER - TRENTON FALLSBrownfields · 2.1 mi
- HINCKLEY METER HOUSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- NYSDOT BIN 7009460Brownfields · 2.2 mi
- SAMPOBrownfields · 2.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Prospect'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 Prospect.
Total Sites
132
within ~10 miles of Prospect
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Prospect
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Prospect
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
Check your specific parcel in Prospect
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 Prospect average
Your land is one point inside Prospect
Everything above resolves to Prospect as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 275 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 Prospect Average
Prospect Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Prospect
- ●One soil character for all of Prospect
- ●Frost dates read at Prospect's scale: Apr 29 to Oct 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Prospect's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Prospect
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Prospect, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Prospect averages can't show:
We read public map data around Prospect — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Prospect average
How we know this about Prospect
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 Prospect’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 Prospect
When does frost risk typically end in Prospect?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Prospect typically lands around Apr 29, 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 20.
When is the first frost in Prospect?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Prospect 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 173 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Prospect?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Prospect sees about 173 frost-free days — roughly Apr 29 through Oct 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 20 to Oct 5, about 138 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Prospect?
The federal record around Prospect is a meaningful one — 132 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (65), the nearest Brownfields 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 Prospect?
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 Prospect's scale — its 5a band and its 173-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Prospect'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 Prospect’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Prospect's own scale — its own ~173-day season between 28°F freezes, the 275 acres it covers and 132 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Prospect's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Prospect's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 29 and Oct 19 and the ~173-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 132 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Prospect, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Prospect's boundary and the 275 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~173-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Prospect's own centroid, the Eastern Great Lakes LowlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Prospect 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 Prospect's 275 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Oneida County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Oneida 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 Oneida County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Prospect's 275 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Prospect you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 275 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 Prospect-wide figureread your own land →
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