Ellendale, Delaware, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Ellendale, 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 Ellendale 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 Ellendale — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Ellendale — the short answer
Ellendale, Delaware: USDA zone 7b, about 235 days between hard freezes, across 272 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~235
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 272 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 Ellendale's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Ellendale's 235-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Ellendale
Each reading below is measured for Ellendale itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredEllendale runs about 235 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
MeasuredEllendale 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 Ellendale is in
Ellendale sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Ellendale's own centroid rather than borrowed from Sussex County.
What Grows in Ellendale
Every plant below cleared Ellendale's own zone 7b and its 235-day season. Each card opens that plant's Delaware profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Ellendale?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 24; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 24 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 14 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Ellendale
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Ellendale, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Ellendale
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Ellendale. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Reynolds PropertyUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- Deldot Ellendale YardUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- Ellendale MarketUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- B&E Service CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- Ellingsworth Gas StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- Royal Farms Store #141 EllendaleUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- ROYAL FARMS #141Brownfields · 0.9 mi
- PCMN-215Nitrate · 2.0 mi
- Ellendale ExxonUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.2 mi
- Herberts Gas StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- GD4-H-GWNitrate · 2.9 mi
- Delaware Pulpwood CoUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Ellendale'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 Ellendale.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Ellendale
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Ellendale
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Ellendale, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Ellendale — Nitrate (190 sites) and Superfund (9 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Ellendale
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 Ellendale average
Your land is one point inside Ellendale
Everything above resolves to Ellendale as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 272 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 Ellendale Average
Ellendale Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Ellendale
- ●One soil character for all of Ellendale
- ●Frost dates read at Ellendale's scale: Mar 24 to Nov 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Ellendale's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Ellendale
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Ellendale, Delaware — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Ellendale averages can't show:
We read public map data around Ellendale — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Ellendale average
How we know this about Ellendale
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 Ellendale’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 Ellendale
When does frost risk typically end in Ellendale?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Ellendale typically lands around Mar 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 Apr 14.
When is the first frost in Ellendale?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Ellendale typically arrives around Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 31, so the watching starts about Oct 15 — about 235 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Ellendale?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Ellendale sees about 235 frost-free days — roughly Mar 24 through Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 14 to Oct 31, about 200 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Ellendale?
The federal record around Ellendale is a meaningful one — 604 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (298), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Ellendale?
From about Oct 15 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 14 (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 14. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Ellendale's scale — its 7b band and its 235-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Ellendale'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 Ellendale’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Ellendale's own scale — its own ~235-day season between 28°F freezes, the 272 acres it covers and 604 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Ellendale's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Ellendale's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 24 and Nov 14 and the ~235-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 604 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Ellendale, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Ellendale's boundary and the 272 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~235-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Ellendale's own centroid, the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Ellendalelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Ellendale's 272 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Sussex County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Sussex 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 Sussex County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Ellendale's 272 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Ellendale you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 272 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Ellendale-wide figureread your own land →