Long Neck, Delaware, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
These conditions suit cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Long Neck, 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 Long Neck 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 Long Neck — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Long Neck — the short answer
Long Neck, Delaware: USDA zone 7b, about 248 days between hard freezes, across 2K 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 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~248
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 Long Neck's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Long Neck's 248-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Long Neck
Each reading below is measured for Long Neck itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLong Neck runs about 248 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
MeasuredLong Neck 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 Long Neck is in
Long Neck sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Long Neck's own centroid rather than borrowed from Sussex County.
What Grows in Long Neck
Every plant below cleared Long Neck's own zone 7b and its 248-day season. Each card opens that plant's Delaware profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Long Neck?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. 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 22 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Long Neck
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Long Neck, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Long Neck
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Long Neck. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Pi31-02Nitrate · 2100 ft
- Pi31-05Nitrate · 2200 ft
- Pi31-13Nitrate · 2200 ft
- Pi31-18Nitrate · 2300 ft
- Pi31-20Nitrate · 2300 ft
- Pi31-19Nitrate · 2300 ft
- Pi31-17Nitrate · 2300 ft
- Pi31-21Nitrate · 2300 ft
- Pi31-01Nitrate · 2300 ft
- Pi31-16Nitrate · 2300 ft
- Pi31-11Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- Ph35-34Nitrate · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Long Neck'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 Long Neck.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Long Neck
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Long Neck
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Long Neck, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Long Neck — Nitrate (402 sites) and PFAS (10 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Long Neck
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 Long Neck average
Your land is one point inside Long Neck
Everything above resolves to Long Neck as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Long Neck Average
Long Neck Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Long Neck
- ●One soil character for all of Long Neck
- ●Frost dates read at Long Neck's scale: Mar 19 to Nov 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Long Neck's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Long Neck
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Long Neck, Delaware — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Long Neck averages can't show:
We read public map data around Long Neck — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Long Neck average
How we know this about Long Neck
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 Long Neck’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 Long Neck
When does frost risk typically end in Long Neck?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Long Neck 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 Long Neck?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Long Neck typically arrives around Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 8, so the watching starts about Oct 23 — about 248 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Long Neck?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Long Neck sees about 248 frost-free days — roughly Mar 19 through Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 9 to Nov 8, about 213 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Long Neck?
The federal record around Long Neck is a meaningful one — 773 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (402), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.4 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 Long Neck?
From about Oct 23 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 22 (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 22. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Long Neck's scale — its 7b band and its 248-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Long Neck'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 Long Neck’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Long Neck's own scale — its own ~248-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,766 acres it covers and 773 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Long Neck's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Long Neck's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 19 and Nov 22 and the ~248-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 773 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Long Neck, the closest Nitrate record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Long Neck's boundary and the 1,766 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~248-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Long Neck's own centroid, the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Long Necklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Long Neck's 1,766 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 Long Neck's 1,766 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Long Neck you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,766 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.4 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 Long Neck-wide figureread your own land →