Caledonia County, in Vermont, sits in USDA hardiness zone 4b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, cranberry, turkish rocket, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Caledonia County lies within the Northeast Kingdom — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Caledonia County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Caledonia 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 Caledonia County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Caledonia County — the short answer
Caledonia County, Vermont: USDA zone 4b, about 153 days between hard freezes, across 415K acres.
- USDA zone
- 4b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- May 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~153
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 415K 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 4b is Caledonia County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Caledonia County's 153-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Caledonia County
Across a year, Caledonia County accumulates about 1,570 growing degree days above 50°F, about 203 fewer than the middle Vermont county — ahead of 2 of Vermont’s 14 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 Caledonia County
Across Caledonia County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Cabot, Vershire, and Buckland are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a very fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–5.8, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
4%
Hydric soils
23%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Caledonia County
The USDA soil survey maps 50% of Caledonia County as well drained — but another 48% drains differently: 20% moderately well drained, 18% poorly drained.
Cabot is the most extensive named soil at 18% of mapped acres, then Vershire (18%) and Buckland (11%).
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 Caledonia County
Each reading below is measured for Caledonia 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 Caledonia 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 Caledonia County runs about pH 5.0–5.8, 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 23% of Caledonia 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
MeasuredCaledonia County runs about 153 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
The kind of country Caledonia County is in
Caledonia County sits in the Northeastern Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northern Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Caledonia County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Caledonia County's own USDA zone 4b and its own 153-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 Vermont profile.
Is it too late to plant in Caledonia County?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Apr 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near May 9 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 9 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even past midsummer there is room for a true fall garden here, and garlic planted near the close carries the momentum into next year.
Documented around Caledonia County
Survey cells within 31 miles of Caledonia County checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 56 miles off. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle4 documented records
- monarch butterfly82 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Caledonia County
USGS estimates 2,328 lb of Glyphosate on Caledonia County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (2,291 lb) and Atrazine (1,857 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 Caledonia County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Caledonia County — 416 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 4 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 Caledonia 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 Caledonia County
Closest first, across Caledonia County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- former Fire StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Stewart ResidenceUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- HHWC NEKWMD DANVILLE STUMP DUMPBrownfields · 2.6 mi
- Calkins Oil Maintenance ShopUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- Danville Mobil Service CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- AOT Right of WayUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.5 mi
- Halstead Residence 5551091Underground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- Marty's 1st Stop MobilUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
- R L VALLEE MARTYS FIRST STOPBrownfields · 3.9 mi
- Vance Tree Contractor, Inc.Underground Storage Tanks · 3.9 mi
- Calkin's ExcavatingUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
- Danville Railroad StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Caledonia 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 Caledonia County.
Sources Checked
across Caledonia County
Severity Distribution
across Caledonia County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Caledonia 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 Caledonia County average
Your land is one point inside Caledonia County
Everything above resolves to Caledonia County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 415K 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 Caledonia County Average
Caledonia County Average
- ●USDA Zones 4b, averaged across Caledonia County
- ●One soil character for all of Caledonia County
- ●Frost dates read at Caledonia County's scale: May 9 to Oct 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Caledonia County's 4b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Caledonia County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Caledonia County, Vermont — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Caledonia County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Caledonia County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Caledonia County average
How we know this about Caledonia 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 Caledonia County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Caledonia County
When does frost risk typically end in Caledonia County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Caledonia County typically lands around May 9, 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 30.
How long is the growing season in Caledonia County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Caledonia County sees about 153 frost-free days — roughly May 9 through Oct 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 30 to Sep 25, about 118 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Caledonia County?
The federal record around Caledonia County is a meaningful one — 416 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (224), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 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.
Everything above is measured at Caledonia County's scale — its 4b band and its 153-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Caledonia 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 Vermont's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Caledonia County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Caledonia County's own scale — its own ~153-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 416 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Caledonia County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 4bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Caledonia County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~153-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Caledonia CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 416 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.9 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Caledonia County's boundary and the 415,497 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 4b and a ~153-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Caledonia County sitting wholly inside the Northeastern HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Caledonia County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Caledonia County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Vermont grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Vermont
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Caledonia County — the ~153 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 Caledonia County's 415,497 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 416 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 Caledonia Countyread your own land →