Gardiner, ME 04342 Frost Dates
04342, near Gardiner, ME: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/08, roughly 253 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/07, roughly 151 days after the last spring frost.
Gardiner sits in USDA Zone 5b (-15 to -10°F average annual minimum). The dates above are NOAA's 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting station, a 30-year average, not a forecast.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Gardiner's growing season runs out in roughly 6 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
The actual range around Gardiner's last frost
05/08 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/26 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/20 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Gardiner against the rest of the dataset
About 151 days separate Gardiner's last and first frost, putting it 35,007 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within ME, it ranks 274 of 456.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 04342: local microclimates, on what one yard in Gardiner can differ from the 04342 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Gardiner's frost date answer different questions.