West Hampton Dunes, New York, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — 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, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in West Hampton Dunes, 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 West Hampton Dunes 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 West Hampton Dunes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
West Hampton Dunes — the short answer
West Hampton Dunes, New York: USDA zone 7a, about 216 days between hard freezes, across 200 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- 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 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~216
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 200 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 7a is West Hampton Dunes's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against West Hampton Dunes's 216-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in West Hampton Dunes
Each reading below is measured for West Hampton Dunes itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWest Hampton Dunes runs about 216 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
MeasuredWest Hampton Dunes sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 West Hampton Dunes is in
West Hampton Dunes sits in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at West Hampton Dunes's own centroid rather than borrowed from Suffolk County.
What Grows in West Hampton Dunes
Every plant below cleared West Hampton Dunes's own zone 7a and its 216-day season. Each card opens that plant's New York profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in West Hampton Dunes?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. 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 8 — 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 West Hampton Dunes
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from West Hampton Dunes, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near West Hampton Dunes
Closest first, within ~10 miles of West Hampton Dunes. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- S 47024. 1Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- S 153. 1Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- USCG GROUP MORICHESBrownfields · 2.3 mi
- USCG GROUP MORICHESSuperfund · 2.3 mi
- S 55783. 1Nitrate · 2.3 mi
- SPEONK SOLVENT PLUMESuperfund · 2.9 mi
- GETTY SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- RIVERHEAD WDPFAS · 3.0 mi
- ADELWERTHS BUS SERVICEBrownfields · 3.2 mi
- RAYNORS GARAGE INCBrownfields · 3.3 mi
- S 58626. 1Nitrate · 3.3 mi
- EASTPORT EXCELLENT AUTOMOTIVEBrownfields · 3.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from West Hampton Dunes'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 West Hampton Dunes.
Total Sites
539
within ~10 miles of West Hampton Dunes
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
4 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of West Hampton Dunes
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of West Hampton Dunes
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around West Hampton Dunes, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 380 sites within ~10 miles of West Hampton Dunes. 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 West Hampton Dunes
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 West Hampton Dunes average
Your land is one point inside West Hampton Dunes
Everything above resolves to West Hampton Dunes as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 200 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 West Hampton Dunes Average
West Hampton Dunes Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across West Hampton Dunes
- ●One soil character for all of West Hampton Dunes
- ●Frost dates read at West Hampton Dunes's scale: Apr 6 to Nov 8
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not West Hampton Dunes's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in West Hampton Dunes
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in West Hampton Dunes, New York — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that West Hampton Dunes averages can't show:
We read public map data around West Hampton Dunes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the West Hampton Dunes average
How we know this about West Hampton Dunes
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 West Hampton Dunes’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 West Hampton Dunes
When does frost risk typically end in West Hampton Dunes?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in West Hampton Dunes 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 West Hampton Dunes?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in West Hampton Dunes typically arrives around Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 25, so the watching starts about Oct 9 — about 216 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in West Hampton Dunes?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, West Hampton Dunes sees about 216 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Nov 8, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 25, about 181 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in West Hampton Dunes?
The federal record around West Hampton Dunes is a meaningful one — 539 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (380), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.7 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 West Hampton Dunes?
From about Oct 9 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 8 (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 8. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at West Hampton Dunes's scale — its 7a band and its 216-day season. Your yard writes its own version of West Hampton Dunes'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 West Hampton Dunes’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at West Hampton Dunes's own scale — its own ~216-day season between 28°F freezes, the 200 acres it covers and 539 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- West Hampton Dunes's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- West Hampton Dunes's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Nov 8 and the ~216-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 539 documented contamination sites on the federal record near West Hampton Dunes, the closest Nitrate record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- West Hampton Dunes's boundary and the 200 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~216-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at West Hampton Dunes's own centroid, the Atlantic Coastal Pine BarrensUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of West Hampton Duneslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so West Hampton Dunes's 200 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 West Hampton Dunes's 200 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of West Hampton Dunes you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 200 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.7 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 West Hampton Dunes-wide figureread your own land →