Providence County, in Rhode Island, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Providence County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Providence 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 Providence County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Providence County — the short answer
Providence County, Rhode Island: USDA zone 6b, about 210 days between hard freezes, across 262K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~210
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 262K 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 6b is Providence County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Providence County's 210-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Providence County
Across a year, Providence County accumulates about 2,563 growing degree days above 50°F, about 72 fewer than the middle Rhode Island county — no other Rhode Island county banks fewer. 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 Providence County
Across Providence County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Canton, Charlton, and Woodbridge are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 4.6–5.3, very strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group B soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
9%
Hydric soils
19%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Providence County
The USDA soil survey maps 42% of Providence County as well drained — but another 47% drains differently: 16% moderately well drained, 11% poorly drained.
Canton is the most extensive named soil at 22% of mapped acres, then Charlton (12%) and Woodbridge (12%).
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 Providence County
Each reading below is measured for Providence 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 Providence County are well drained, in hydrologic group B — 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 Providence County runs about pH 4.6–5.3, 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 19% of Providence 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
MeasuredProvidence County runs about 210 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 Providence County is in
Providence 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 Providence County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Providence County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 210-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 Providence County?
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 2 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Providence County
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Providence County, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
- monarch butterfly75 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Providence County
USGS estimates 152 lb of 2,4-d on Providence County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (151 lb) and Chlorpyrifos (138 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 Providence County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Providence County — 3,820 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 57 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Providence County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Providence County
Closest first, across Providence County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- IRON MOUNTAIN RHODE ISLANDUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- NEW ENGLAND TELEPHONEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- GLOCESTER GARAGE (D.O.T.)Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- STEERE ORCHARDSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- KLIMAJ SCOTT BBrownfields · 1.1 mi
- DUTCH AUTO BODYBrownfields · 1.2 mi
- ST. JOSEPH'S CHURCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- COOPER ROAD/ PUTNAM PIKE AREASuperfund · 1.5 mi
- HARMONY FIRE DISTRICT DEPARTMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- TOURBILLON TRAILER SALES INCBrownfields · 1.5 mi
- CONNETTI ENTERPRISES, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- SMITHFIELD HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 2.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Providence 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 Providence County.
Sources Checked
across Providence County
Severity Distribution
across Providence County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Providence County, two things run higher than the national average across Providence County — Toxics Release Inventory (316 sites) and Superfund (57 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Providence 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 Providence County average
Your land is one point inside Providence County
Everything above resolves to Providence County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 262K 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 Providence County Average
Providence County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Providence County
- ●One soil character for all of Providence County
- ●Frost dates read at Providence County's scale: Apr 6 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Providence County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Providence County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Providence County, Rhode Island — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Providence County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Providence County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Providence County average
How we know this about Providence 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 Providence County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Providence County
When does frost risk typically end in Providence County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Providence County 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.
How long is the growing season in Providence County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Providence County sees about 210 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 19, about 175 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Providence County?
The federal record around Providence County runs heavier than most — 3,820 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,978), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 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.
Everything above is measured at Providence County's scale — its 6b band and its 210-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Providence 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 Providence County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Providence County's own scale — its own ~210-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 3,820 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Providence County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Providence County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~210-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Providence CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 3,820 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.4 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Providence County's boundary and the 262,069 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~210-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Providence County sitting wholly inside the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Providence County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Providence 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 Providence County — the ~210 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 Providence County's 262,069 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 3,820 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 Providence Countyread your own land →