Bowers, Delaware, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Expect cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Bowers, 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 Bowers 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 Bowers — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Bowers — the short answer
Bowers, Delaware: USDA zone 7b, about 250 days between hard freezes, across 199 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~250
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 199 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 7b is Bowers's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bowers's 250-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bowers
Each reading below is measured for Bowers itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBowers runs about 250 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
MeasuredBowers sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Bowers is in
Bowers sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bowers's own centroid rather than borrowed from Kent County.
What Grows in Bowers
Every plant below cleared Bowers's own zone 7b and its 250-day season. Each card opens that plant's Delaware profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bowers?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 19 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 24 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Bowers
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Bowers, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Bowers
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bowers. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Kent County Sewer System Pumping Station #18Underground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- Bowers-ColumbiaNitrate · 1600 ft
- Bowers-FredericaNitrate · 1600 ft
- Bowers-FederalsburgNitrate · 1600 ft
- Bowers-CheswoldNitrate · 1600 ft
- Bowers-Piney PointNitrate · 1700 ft
- Faulkners PierUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- Keating PropertyUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- DNERR-1Nitrate · 2.9 mi
- PCMN-190Nitrate · 2.9 mi
- Ke33-22Nitrate · 2.9 mi
- DNERR-2Nitrate · 3.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bowers'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 Bowers.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bowers
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bowers
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bowers, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 8 sites within ~10 miles of Bowers. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Bowers
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 Bowers average
Your land is one point inside Bowers
Everything above resolves to Bowers as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 199 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 Bowers Average
Bowers Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Bowers
- ●One soil character for all of Bowers
- ●Frost dates read at Bowers's scale: Mar 19 to Nov 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bowers's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bowers
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bowers, Delaware — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bowers averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bowers — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bowers average
How we know this about Bowers
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 Bowers’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 Bowers
When does frost risk typically end in Bowers?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bowers typically lands around Mar 19, 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 9.
When is the first frost in Bowers?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bowers typically arrives around Nov 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 10, so the watching starts about Oct 25 — about 250 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bowers?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bowers sees about 250 frost-free days — roughly Mar 19 through Nov 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 9 to Nov 10, about 215 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bowers?
The federal record around Bowers runs heavier than most — 520 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (309), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles 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 Bowers?
From about Oct 25 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 24 (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 24. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bowers's scale — its 7b band and its 250-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bowers'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 Bowers’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Bowers's own scale — its own ~250-day season between 28°F freezes, the 199 acres it covers and 520 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bowers's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bowers's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 19 and Nov 24 and the ~250-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 520 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bowers, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bowers's boundary and the 199 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~250-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bowers's own centroid, the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Bowerslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Bowers's 199 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Kent County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Kent County
- The growing challenges every Delaware grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Delaware
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Kent County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bowers's 199 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bowers you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 199 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Bowers-wide figureread your own land →