Globally, forests remove about 30% of anthropogenic carbon emissions each year and store it in soils and biomass. However, the future of this carbon sink is jeopardized by climate change and other anthropogenic activities like forest fragmentation – a universal feature of landscapes worldwide with estimates placing 20% of global forests within 100 meters of a forest edge. Between edge and interior, there are gradients in air temperature, soil moisture, and vapor pressure deficit impacting differences in growth depending on a tree's proximity to an edge. Temperate forests have demonstrated increased growth close to forest edges (edge enhancements), partially offsetting the carbon losses from fragmentation. Little is known about how soon these enhancements occur and how climate change might alter their significance. To better understand forest tree growth response to the creation of an edge, a 180-by-45-meter section of Harvard Forest was cleared in the winter of 2023 and 6 plots, 15-by-30m, were created along the south-facing edge of this clearing. Of all trees in the plots, the 101 trees >20 cm DBH were instrumented with dendrometer bands to quantify weekly growth rates during the growing season and 46 of those trees were instrumented with point dendrometers to monitor tree growth. They are primarily Quercus rubra (Red oak), Acer rubrum (Red maple), and Pinus strobus (Eastern white pine). I compared tree growth between 2023 and 2024 and explored microclimate controls on tree growth. In 2023, tree growth rate at the edge lagged behind growth rates for interior trees, but by 2024, edge growth rates accelerated and are similar to the interior, indicating that it can take at least 1 year for trees along the edge to benefit from enhanced light conditions. Precipitation events appear to exert the largest control on temporal patterns of tree growth. In particular, tree growth spurts typically followed precipitation events and spikes in soil moisture, highlighting the importance of precipitation events even in mesic forests. My work shows that the timing of tree growth response is an uncertainty that constrains biomass accumulation at forest edges.