Newport County, in Rhode Island, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Newport County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Newport County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Newport County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Newport County — the short answer
Newport County, Rhode Island: USDA zone 7a, about 243 days between hard freezes, across 66K acres.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~243
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 66K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 Newport County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Newport County's 243-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Newport County
Across a year, Newport County accumulates about 2,614 growing degree days above 50°F, about 21 fewer than the middle Rhode Island county — ahead of 1 of Rhode Island’s 5 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Newport County
Across Newport County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Newport, Pittstown, and Mansfield are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.1–5.3, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
34%
Hydric soils
25%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Newport County
The USDA soil survey maps 39% of Newport County as well drained — but another 31% drains differently: 12% moderately well drained, 10% poorly drained.
Newport is the most extensive named soil at 36% of mapped acres, then Pittstown (14%) and Mansfield (6%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Newport County
Each reading below is measured for Newport County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Newport County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Newport County runs about pH 5.1–5.3, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 25% of Newport County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredNewport County runs about 243 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
The kind of country Newport County is in
Newport County sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Newport County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Newport County's own USDA zone 7a and its own 243-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Rhode Island profile.
Is it too late to plant in Newport County?
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 Feb 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 24 — 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 Newport County
Spotted lanternfly documented 15 miles from Newport County, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly209 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Newport County
USGS estimates 1,079 lb of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s on Newport County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor-s (998 lb) and Glyphosate (576 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Newport County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Newport County — 636 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 27 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Newport County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Newport County
Closest first, across Newport County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ANALYSIS & TECHNOLOGY INCBrownfields · 450 ft
- LOCKHEAD MARTINBrownfields · 600 ft
- PROGENY SYSTEMSBrownfields · 700 ft
- SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION (SAIC)Brownfields · 750 ft
- MCLAUGHLIN RESEARCH CORPBrownfields · 1000 ft
- NEWPORT COUNTY COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTHBrownfields · 1100 ft
- SYSCON CORPBrownfields · 1300 ft
- OCEAN DATA EQUIPMENTBrownfields · 1300 ft
- COMMERCIAL BUILDINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- BEVMAR INDBrownfields · 1400 ft
- GAUDET MIDDLE SCHOOL COMPLEXUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- NEWPORT READY MIX/ CARDI CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Newport County'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 Newport County.
Sources Checked
across Newport County
Severity Distribution
across Newport County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Newport County, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 27 sites across Newport County. 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 Newport County
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 Newport County average
Your land is one point inside Newport County
Everything above resolves to Newport County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 66K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Newport County Average
Newport County Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Newport County
- ●One soil character for all of Newport County
- ●Frost dates read at Newport County's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Newport County's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Newport County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Newport County, Rhode Island — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Newport County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Newport County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Newport County average
How we know this about Newport County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Newport County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Newport County
When does frost risk typically end in Newport County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Newport County typically lands around Mar 26, 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 16.
How long is the growing season in Newport County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Newport County sees about 243 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Nov 10, about 208 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Newport County?
The federal record around Newport County is a meaningful one — 636 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (364), the nearest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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.
Everything above is measured at Newport County's scale — its 7a band and its 243-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Newport County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Rhode Island's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Newport County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Newport County's own scale — its own ~243-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 636 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Newport County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Newport County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~243-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Newport CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 636 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile outFederal environmental registers
- Newport County's boundary and the 65,556 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~243-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Newport County sitting wholly inside the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Newport County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Newport County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Rhode Island grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Rhode Island
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Newport County — the ~243 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Newport County's 65,556 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 636 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Newport Countyread your own land →