SUNY Oswego, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in SUNY Oswego, 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 SUNY Oswego 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 SUNY Oswego — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
SUNY Oswego — the short answer
SUNY Oswego, New York: USDA zone 6b, about 226 days between hard freezes, across 216 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~226
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 216 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 SUNY Oswego's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against SUNY Oswego's 226-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in SUNY Oswego
Each reading below is measured for SUNY Oswego itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSUNY Oswego runs about 226 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
MeasuredSUNY Oswego 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 SUNY Oswego is in
SUNY Oswego sits in the Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at SUNY Oswego's own centroid rather than borrowed from Oswego County.
What Grows in SUNY Oswego
Every plant below cleared SUNY Oswego's own zone 6b and its 226-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in SUNY Oswego?
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 Mar 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 18 — 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 SUNY Oswego
Survey cells within 31 miles of SUNY Oswego checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 35 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near SUNY Oswego
Closest first, within ~10 miles of SUNY Oswego. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NIAGARA MOHAWK WEST OSWEGO SUBSTABrownfields · 1100 ft
- SUNY OSWEGOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- OSWEGO CITY OF MCCAFFERY WATER TREATMENTBrownfields · 1900 ft
- ONONDAGA COUNTY WATER AUTHORITY LAKE ONTARIO RAW WATER SITEBrownfields · 2300 ft
- OSWEGO HARBOR POWER STATIONBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- OSWEGO HARBOR POWER STATIONToxics Release Inventory · 0.5 mi
- O'REILLY AUTO PARTSBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- LINDA D. BUSH-BUSH AUTOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- OSWEGO COUNTY D P WBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- BIG LOTS #1074Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- MOBIL S/S 08-LLHUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- SUNY OSWEGOBrownfields · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from SUNY Oswego'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 SUNY Oswego.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of SUNY Oswego
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of SUNY Oswego
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around SUNY Oswego, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 5 sites within ~10 miles of SUNY Oswego. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
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 SUNY Oswego
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 SUNY Oswego average
Your land is one point inside SUNY Oswego
Everything above resolves to SUNY Oswego as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 216 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 SUNY Oswego Average
SUNY Oswego Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across SUNY Oswego
- ●One soil character for all of SUNY Oswego
- ●Frost dates read at SUNY Oswego's scale: Apr 6 to Nov 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not SUNY Oswego's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in SUNY Oswego
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in SUNY Oswego, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that SUNY Oswego averages can't show:
We read public map data around SUNY Oswego — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the SUNY Oswego average
How we know this about SUNY Oswego
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 SUNY Oswego’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 SUNY Oswego
When does frost risk typically end in SUNY Oswego?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in SUNY Oswego typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
When is the first frost in SUNY Oswego?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in SUNY Oswego typically arrives around Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 4, so the watching starts about Oct 19 — about 226 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in SUNY Oswego?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, SUNY Oswego sees about 226 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Nov 4, about 191 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in SUNY Oswego?
The federal record around SUNY Oswego is a meaningful one — 156 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (80), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles 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 SUNY Oswego?
From about Oct 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 Nov 18 (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 18. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at SUNY Oswego's scale — its 6b band and its 226-day season. Your yard writes its own version of SUNY Oswego'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 SUNY Oswego’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at SUNY Oswego's own scale — its own ~226-day season between 28°F freezes, the 216 acres it covers and 156 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- SUNY Oswego's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- SUNY Oswego's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Nov 18 and the ~226-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 156 documented contamination sites on the federal record near SUNY Oswego, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- SUNY Oswego's boundary and the 216 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~226-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at SUNY Oswego's own centroid, the Eastern Great Lakes LowlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around SUNY Oswego 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 SUNY Oswego's 216 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Oswego County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Oswego 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 Oswego County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among SUNY Oswego's 216 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of SUNY Oswego you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 216 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 SUNY Oswego-wide figureread your own land →
More in New York
Wider growing context
What grows across New YorkSUNY Oswego sits outside our named growing regions, so New York as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides