Sodus, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Sodus, 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 Sodus 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 Sodus — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Sodus — the short answer
Sodus, New York: USDA zone 6b, about 217 days between hard freezes, across 602 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~217
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 602 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 6b is Sodus's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sodus's 217-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Sodus
Each reading below is measured for Sodus itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSodus runs about 217 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
MeasuredSodus sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Sodus is in
Sodus sits in the Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Sodus's own centroid rather than borrowed from Wayne County.
What Grows in Sodus
Every plant below cleared Sodus's own zone 6b and its 217-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Sodus?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 11 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Sodus
Spotted lanternfly documented 29 miles from Sodus, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Sodus
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Sodus. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CVS PHARMACY #5078Brownfields · 450 ft
- WAYNE COUNTY LAND BANKBrownfields · 450 ft
- ROSS MOTOR SALES INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- SODUS COLD STORAGE CO., INC.Brownfields · 850 ft
- NYNEXUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- ROCHESTER GAS & ELECTRIC CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- BARTLESON FARMSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- SODUS SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- RAYS MOBIL SERVICEBrownfields · 1100 ft
- RG&E - SODUSBrownfields · 1100 ft
- FAMILY DOLLAR STORE 2559Brownfields · 1100 ft
- GARLOCK INC-COLTEC INDUSTRIESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sodus'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 Sodus.
Total Sites
154
within ~10 miles of Sodus
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Sodus
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Sodus
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Sodus, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Sodus — PFAS (3 sites) and Superfund (3 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Sodus
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 Sodus average
Your land is one point inside Sodus
Everything above resolves to Sodus as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 602 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 Sodus Average
Sodus Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Sodus
- ●One soil character for all of Sodus
- ●Frost dates read at Sodus's scale: Apr 8 to Nov 11
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sodus's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Sodus
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sodus, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sodus averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sodus — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sodus average
How we know this about Sodus
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 Sodus’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 Sodus
When does frost risk typically end in Sodus?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sodus typically lands around Apr 8, 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 29.
When is the first frost in Sodus?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Sodus typically arrives around Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 28, so the watching starts about Oct 12 — about 217 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Sodus?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sodus sees about 217 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Nov 11, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 28, about 182 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sodus?
The federal record around Sodus is a meaningful one — 154 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (95), 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 Sodus?
From about Oct 12 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 11 (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 11. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Sodus's scale — its 6b band and its 217-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sodus'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 Sodus’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Sodus's own scale — its own ~217-day season between 28°F freezes, the 602 acres it covers and 154 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sodus's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Sodus's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 8 and Nov 11 and the ~217-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 154 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Sodus, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Sodus's boundary and the 602 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~217-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Sodus's own centroid, the Eastern Great Lakes LowlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Soduslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Sodus's 602 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Wayne County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Wayne 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 Wayne County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Sodus's 602 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Sodus you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 602 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 Sodus-wide figureread your own land →