Tioga Terrace, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Tioga Terrace, 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 Tioga Terrace 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 Tioga Terrace — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Tioga Terrace — the short answer
Tioga Terrace, New York: USDA zone 6a, about 178 days between hard freezes, across 641 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~178
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 641 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 6a is Tioga Terrace's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Tioga Terrace's 178-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Tioga Terrace
Each reading below is measured for Tioga Terrace itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredTioga Terrace runs about 178 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
MeasuredTioga Terrace sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Tioga Terrace is in
Tioga Terrace sits in the Northern Allegheny Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Tioga Terrace's own centroid rather than borrowed from Tioga County.
What Grows in Tioga Terrace
Every plant below cleared Tioga Terrace's own zone 6a and its 178-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Tioga Terrace?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 20 — 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 Tioga Terrace
Spotted lanternfly documented 6 miles from Tioga Terrace, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Tioga Terrace
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Tioga Terrace. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TI 146Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- KWIK FILL MO353/353Underground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- TI 62Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- HIDDEN VALLEY ELECTRONICS INCBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- K&K FOOD MARTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- EXPRESS MART #357Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- ATLANTIC REFINING FAC 60073Underground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- GEORGE A. VULTAGGIOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- ANGELO N. MARIANIUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- NYSDOT BIN 1012971Brownfields · 1.8 mi
- NYSDOT BIN 1012972Brownfields · 1.8 mi
- BM2680Nitrate · 1.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Tioga Terrace'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 Tioga Terrace.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Tioga Terrace
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Tioga Terrace
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Tioga Terrace, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 12 sites within ~10 miles of Tioga Terrace. 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 Tioga Terrace
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 Tioga Terrace average
Your land is one point inside Tioga Terrace
Everything above resolves to Tioga Terrace as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 641 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 Tioga Terrace Average
Tioga Terrace Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Tioga Terrace
- ●One soil character for all of Tioga Terrace
- ●Frost dates read at Tioga Terrace's scale: Apr 25 to Oct 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Tioga Terrace's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Tioga Terrace
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Tioga Terrace, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Tioga Terrace averages can't show:
We read public map data around Tioga Terrace — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Tioga Terrace average
How we know this about Tioga Terrace
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 Tioga Terrace’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 Tioga Terrace
When does frost risk typically end in Tioga Terrace?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Tioga Terrace typically lands around Apr 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 May 16.
When is the first frost in Tioga Terrace?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Tioga Terrace typically arrives around Oct 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 6, so the watching starts about Sep 20 — about 178 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Tioga Terrace?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Tioga Terrace sees about 178 frost-free days — roughly Apr 25 through Oct 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 16 to Oct 6, about 143 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Tioga Terrace?
The federal record around Tioga Terrace runs heavier than most — 588 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (261), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.8 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 Tioga Terrace?
From about Sep 20 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 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 Oct 20. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Tioga Terrace's scale — its 6a band and its 178-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Tioga Terrace'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 Tioga Terrace’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Tioga Terrace's own scale — its own ~178-day season between 28°F freezes, the 641 acres it covers and 588 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Tioga Terrace's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Tioga Terrace's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 25 and Oct 20 and the ~178-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 588 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Tioga Terrace, the closest Nitrate record about 0.8 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Tioga Terrace's boundary and the 641 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~178-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Tioga Terrace's own centroid, the Northern Allegheny PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Tioga Terracelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Tioga Terrace's 641 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Tioga County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Tioga 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 Tioga County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Tioga Terrace's 641 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Tioga Terrace you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 641 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.8 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 Tioga Terrace-wide figureread your own land →
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