Hinesburg, Vermont, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — 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, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Hinesburg, 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 Hinesburg 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 Hinesburg — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Hinesburg — the short answer
Hinesburg, Vermont: USDA zone 5a, about 180 days between hard freezes, across 796 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~180
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 796 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 5a is Hinesburg's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Hinesburg's 180-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Hinesburg
Each reading below is measured for Hinesburg itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredHinesburg runs about 180 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
Winter hardiness
MeasuredHinesburg sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a.
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 Hinesburg is in
Hinesburg sits in the Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Hinesburg's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Chittenden County is mostly Northeastern Highlands. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Hinesburg
Every plant below cleared Hinesburg's own zone 5a and its 180-day season. Each card opens that plant's Vermont profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Hinesburg?
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 Mar 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 21 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Documented around Hinesburg
Survey cells within 31 miles of Hinesburg checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 54 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Hinesburg
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Hinesburg. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NESTECH MACHINE SYSTEMSBrownfields · 700 ft
- Chittenden S School Trans CentralUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- Hinesburg Jiffy Mart #446Underground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- Champlain Valley Union HSUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- VERMONT SMOKE AND CUREBrownfields · 800 ft
- SAPUTO CHEESE USA INCBrownfields · 800 ft
- SAPUTO CHEESE USA INCToxics Release Inventory · 800 ft
- STEWART'S SHOP #543Brownfields · 850 ft
- Hinesburg JolleyUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- KINNEY DRUGS #103Brownfields · 1300 ft
- N R G SYSTEMS INCBrownfields · 1900 ft
- Hart & Mead TexacoUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Hinesburg'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 Hinesburg.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Hinesburg
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Hinesburg
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Hinesburg, Brownfields runs higher than the national average — 314 sites within ~10 miles of Hinesburg. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Brownfields: Brownfield sites are former commercial or industrial properties where legacy soil contamination (heavy metals, PAHs, petroleum compounds) may persist.
Check EPA brownfield remediation status — many sites have completed cleanup with institutional controls.
Check your specific parcel in Hinesburg
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 Hinesburg average
Your land is one point inside Hinesburg
Everything above resolves to Hinesburg as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 796 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 Hinesburg Average
Hinesburg Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Hinesburg
- ●One soil character for all of Hinesburg
- ●Frost dates read at Hinesburg's scale: Apr 24 to Oct 21
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Hinesburg's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Hinesburg
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Hinesburg, Vermont — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Hinesburg averages can't show:
We read public map data around Hinesburg — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Hinesburg average
How we know this about Hinesburg
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 Hinesburg’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 Hinesburg
When does frost risk typically end in Hinesburg?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Hinesburg typically lands around Apr 24, 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 15.
When is the first frost in Hinesburg?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Hinesburg typically arrives around Oct 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 7, so the watching starts about Sep 21 — about 180 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Hinesburg?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Hinesburg sees about 180 frost-free days — roughly Apr 24 through Oct 21, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 15 to Oct 7, about 145 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Hinesburg?
The federal record around Hinesburg is a meaningful one — 595 documented sites, mostly Brownfields entries (314), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 Hinesburg?
From about Sep 21 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 Oct 21 (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 Oct 21. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Hinesburg's scale — its 5a band and its 180-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Hinesburg'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 Hinesburg’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Hinesburg's own scale — its own ~180-day season between 28°F freezes, the 796 acres it covers and 595 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Hinesburg's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Hinesburg's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 24 and Oct 21 and the ~180-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 595 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Hinesburg, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Hinesburg's boundary and the 796 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~180-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Hinesburg sits in the Eastern Great Lakes Lowlands — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Hinesburg checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Hinesburg's 796 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Chittenden County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Chittenden County
- The growing challenges every Vermont grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Vermont
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Chittenden County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Hinesburg's 796 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Hinesburg you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 796 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 Hinesburg-wide figureread your own land →
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