St. James, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
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 St. James, 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 St. James 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 St. James — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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St. James — the short answer
St. James, New York: USDA zone 7b, about 240 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~240
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 St. James's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against St. James's 240-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in St. James
Each reading below is measured for St. James itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSt. James 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
MeasuredSt. James 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 St. James is in
St. James sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at St. James's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Suffolk County is mostly Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in St. James
Every plant below cleared St. James'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 St. James?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 20 — 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 St. James
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from St. James, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near St. James
Closest first, within ~10 miles of St. James. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- KRISTINS NAILBrownfields · 1200 ft
- D C M PHOTO FINISHINGBrownfields · 1300 ft
- S 48014. 1Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- S 37174. 1Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- ST JAMES CLEANERSBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- S136652. 1Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- S 21945. 1Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- S136651. 1Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- SMITHTOWN HIGH SCHOOL EASTBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- S 96183. 1Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- NYSOMH-ST JAMES STATE OPERATED COMMUNITY RESIDENCE SOCRBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- S 54665. 1Nitrate · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from St. James'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 St. James.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of St. James
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of St. James
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around St. James, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 998 sites within ~10 miles of St. James. 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.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in St. James
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 St. James average
Your land is one point inside St. James
Everything above resolves to St. James as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 St. James Average
St. James Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across St. James
- ●One soil character for all of St. James
- ●Frost dates read at St. James's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not St. James's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in St. James
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in St. James, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that St. James averages can't show:
We read public map data around St. James — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the St. James average
How we know this about St. James
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 St. James’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 St. James
When does frost risk typically end in St. James?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in St. James typically lands around Mar 25, 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 15.
When is the first frost in St. James?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in St. James typically arrives around Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 6, so the watching starts about Oct 21 — about 240 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in St. James?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, St. James sees about 240 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Nov 6, about 205 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in St. James?
The federal record around St. James runs heavier than most — 2,319 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (1,117), 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 St. James?
From about Oct 21 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 20 (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 20. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at St. James's scale — its 7b band and its 240-day season. Your yard writes its own version of St. James'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 St. James’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at St. James's own scale — its own ~240-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,921 acres it covers and 2,319 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- St. James's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- St. James's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 25 and Nov 20 and the ~240-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,319 documented contamination sites on the federal record near St. James, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- St. James's boundary and the 2,921 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~240-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- St. James sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of St. Jameslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so St. James's 2,921 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Suffolk County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Suffolk 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 Suffolk County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among St. James's 2,921 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of St. James you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,921 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 St. James-wide figureread your own land →