Three Mile Bay, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
On paper, cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Three Mile Bay, 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 Three Mile Bay 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 Three Mile Bay — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Three Mile Bay — the short answer
Three Mile Bay, New York: USDA zone 5a, about 197 days between hard freezes, across 181 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~197
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 181 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 Three Mile Bay's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Three Mile Bay's 197-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Three Mile Bay
Each reading below is measured for Three Mile Bay itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredThree Mile Bay runs about 197 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
MeasuredThree Mile Bay 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 Three Mile Bay is in
Three Mile Bay sits in the Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Three Mile Bay's own centroid rather than borrowed from Jefferson County.
What Grows in Three Mile Bay
Every plant below cleared Three Mile Bay's own zone 5a and its 197-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Three Mile Bay?
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 20; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
Documented around Three Mile Bay
Survey cells within 31 miles of Three Mile Bay checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 71 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Three Mile Bay
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Three Mile Bay. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PRATTSBURG CENTRAL SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- NYSDOT BIN 1010140Brownfields · 1.6 mi
- LYME CENTRAL SCHOOL FUEL FACILITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- LUCKY STAR RANCH CORP.Underground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- FRANK'S SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
- LYME TOWN OF HIGHWAY DEPARTMENTBrownfields · 3.3 mi
- LYME CENTRAL SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.4 mi
- 7-ELEVEN #40491Underground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
- J 237Nitrate · 3.6 mi
- FORMER CHAUMONT GROCERY, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
- SKYLINE APARTMENTSUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
- LYME(T) HIGHWAY DEPT.Underground Storage Tanks · 3.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Three Mile Bay'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 Three Mile Bay.
Total Sites
71
within ~10 miles of Three Mile Bay
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
4 concentrated animal feeding operations
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Three Mile Bay
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Three Mile Bay
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Three Mile Bay, CAFO runs higher than the national average — 4 sites within ~10 miles of Three Mile Bay. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check your specific parcel in Three Mile Bay
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 Three Mile Bay average
Your land is one point inside Three Mile Bay
Everything above resolves to Three Mile Bay as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 181 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 Three Mile Bay Average
Three Mile Bay Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Three Mile Bay
- ●One soil character for all of Three Mile Bay
- ●Frost dates read at Three Mile Bay's scale: Apr 17 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Three Mile Bay's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Three Mile Bay
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Three Mile Bay, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Three Mile Bay averages can't show:
We read public map data around Three Mile Bay — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Three Mile Bay average
How we know this about Three Mile Bay
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 Three Mile Bay’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 Three Mile Bay
When does frost risk typically end in Three Mile Bay?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Three Mile Bay typically lands around Apr 17, 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 8.
When is the first frost in Three Mile Bay?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Three Mile Bay typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 197 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Three Mile Bay?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Three Mile Bay sees about 197 frost-free days — roughly Apr 17 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 8 to Oct 17, about 162 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Three Mile Bay?
The federal record around Three Mile Bay shows 71 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (43), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Three Mile Bay?
From about Oct 1 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 31 (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 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Three Mile Bay's scale — its 5a band and its 197-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Three Mile Bay'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 Three Mile Bay’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Three Mile Bay's own scale — its own ~197-day season between 28°F freezes, the 181 acres it covers and 71 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Three Mile Bay's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Three Mile Bay's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 17 and Oct 31 and the ~197-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 71 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Three Mile Bay, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Three Mile Bay's boundary and the 181 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~197-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Three Mile Bay's own centroid, the Eastern Great Lakes LowlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Three Mile Bay 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 Three Mile Bay's 181 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Jefferson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Jefferson 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 Jefferson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Three Mile Bay's 181 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Three Mile Bay you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 181 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Three Mile Bay-wide figureread your own land →