Union Springs, 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.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Union Springs, 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 Union Springs 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 Union Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Union Springs — the short answer
Union Springs, New York: USDA zone 6b, about 211 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 12
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~211
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Union Springs's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Union Springs's 211-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Union Springs
Each reading below is measured for Union Springs itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredUnion Springs runs about 211 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
MeasuredUnion Springs 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 Union Springs is in
Union Springs sits in the Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Union Springs's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cayuga County.
What Grows in Union Springs
Every plant below cleared Union Springs's own zone 6b and its 211-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Union Springs?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 15; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 12 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 9 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Union Springs
Spotted lanternfly documented 13 miles from Union Springs, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Union Springs
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Union Springs. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WICKES MFG CO-ELECT DIVUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- MACKENZIE-CHILDS LTDToxics Release Inventory · 2600 ft
- MACKENZIE-CHILDS LTDBrownfields · 2600 ft
- VILLAGE OF UNION SPRINGSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- CY 49Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- BILL GROW'SUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- LAKESIDE TRADINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- UNION SPRINGS CSD - BUS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- TOWN OF SPRINGPORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- NICE N EASY GROCERY SHOPPE #42Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- TRADE-A-YACHT INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.3 mi
- HIDDEN MEADOW ACRES, LLCCAFO · 2.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Union Springs'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 Union Springs.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Union Springs
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Union Springs
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Union Springs, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Union Springs — CAFO (42 sites) and Superfund (6 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Union Springs
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 Union Springs average
Your land is one point inside Union Springs
Everything above resolves to Union Springs as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Union Springs Average
Union Springs Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Union Springs
- ●One soil character for all of Union Springs
- ●Frost dates read at Union Springs's scale: Apr 12 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Union Springs's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Union Springs
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Union Springs, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Union Springs averages can't show:
We read public map data around Union Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Union Springs average
How we know this about Union Springs
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 Union Springs’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 Union Springs
When does frost risk typically end in Union Springs?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Union Springs typically lands around Apr 12, 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 3.
When is the first frost in Union Springs?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Union Springs typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 211 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Union Springs?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Union Springs sees about 211 frost-free days — roughly Apr 12 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 3 to Oct 26, about 176 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Union Springs?
The federal record around Union Springs is a meaningful one — 395 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (177), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Union Springs?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Union Springs's scale — its 6b band and its 211-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Union Springs'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 Union Springs’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Union Springs's own scale — its own ~211-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,119 acres it covers and 395 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Union Springs's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Union Springs's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 12 and Nov 9 and the ~211-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 395 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Union Springs, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Union Springs's boundary and the 1,119 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~211-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Union Springs's own centroid, the Eastern Great Lakes LowlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Union Springslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Union Springs's 1,119 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cayuga County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cayuga 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 Cayuga County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Union Springs's 1,119 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Union Springs you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,119 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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 Union Springs-wide figureread your own land →
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