Pawtucket, Rhode Island, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Pawtucket, 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 Pawtucket 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 Pawtucket — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Pawtucket — the short answer
Pawtucket, Rhode Island: USDA zone 7a, about 224 days between hard freezes, across 6K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 30
- 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
- ~224
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 6K 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 Pawtucket's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pawtucket's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pawtucket
Each reading below is measured for Pawtucket itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPawtucket runs about 224 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
MeasuredPawtucket 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 Pawtucket is in
Pawtucket sits in the Northeastern Coastal Zone — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Pawtucket's own centroid rather than borrowed from Providence County.
What Grows in Pawtucket
Every plant below cleared Pawtucket's own zone 7a and its 224-day season. Each card opens that plant's Rhode Island profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Pawtucket?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 30 (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. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Pawtucket
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Pawtucket, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Pawtucket
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pawtucket. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CLEAN HARBORS OF ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES, INCBrownfields · 400 ft
- NEW ENGLAND MOTOR FREIGHT, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- NEW ENGLAND LINEN SUPPLY, INC.Underground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- CUMBERLAND FARMS, INC. #3851Underground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- FEDEX FREIGHT PVDBrownfields · 1100 ft
- GLOBE PRINTINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- PRECISION METALS INCToxics Release Inventory · 1200 ft
- HASBROToxics Release Inventory · 1200 ft
- ROSCO LABUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- YANKEE AUTO ELECTRICBrownfields · 1400 ft
- PASCALE SERVICE CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- MEMORIAL HOSPITAL OF RHODE ISLANDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pawtucket'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 Pawtucket.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pawtucket
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pawtucket
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pawtucket, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Pawtucket — Toxics Release Inventory (357 sites) and Superfund (55 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 Pawtucket
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 Pawtucket average
Your land is one point inside Pawtucket
Everything above resolves to Pawtucket as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 6K 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 city 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 Pawtucket Average
Pawtucket Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Pawtucket
- ●One soil character for all of Pawtucket
- ●Frost dates read at Pawtucket's scale: Mar 30 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pawtucket's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pawtucket
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pawtucket, Rhode Island — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pawtucket averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pawtucket — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pawtucket average
How we know this about Pawtucket
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Pawtucket’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Pawtucket
When does frost risk typically end in Pawtucket?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pawtucket typically lands around Mar 30, 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 20.
When is the first frost in Pawtucket?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pawtucket 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 224 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pawtucket?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pawtucket sees about 224 frost-free days — roughly Mar 30 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 20 to Oct 26, about 189 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pawtucket?
The federal record around Pawtucket runs heavier than most — 4,214 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,979), the nearest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Pawtucket?
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 Pawtucket's scale — its 7a band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pawtucket'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 Pawtucket’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Pawtucket's own scale — its own ~224-day season between 28°F freezes, the 5,547 acres it covers and 4,214 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pawtucket's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pawtucket's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 30 and Nov 9 and the ~224-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 4,214 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pawtucket, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pawtucket's boundary and the 5,547 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Pawtucket's own centroid, the Northeastern Coastal ZoneUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Pawtucketlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Pawtucket's 5,547 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Providence County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Providence County
- The growing challenges every Rhode Island grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Rhode Island
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Providence County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pawtucket's 5,547 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pawtucket you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 5,547 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile 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 Pawtucket-wide figureread your own land →
More in Rhode Island
Wider growing context
What grows across Rhode IslandPawtucket sits outside our named growing regions, so Rhode Island as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides