Woodside East, Delaware, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Growers here do well with cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Woodside East, 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 Woodside East 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 Woodside East — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Woodside East — the short answer
Woodside East, Delaware: USDA zone 7b, about 237 days between hard freezes, across 1K 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 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~237
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Woodside East's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Woodside East's 237-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Woodside East
Each reading below is measured for Woodside East itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWoodside East runs about 237 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
MeasuredWoodside East 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 Woodside East is in
Woodside East sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Woodside East's own centroid rather than borrowed from Kent County.
What Grows in Woodside East
Every plant below cleared Woodside East's own zone 7b and its 237-day season. Each card opens that plant's Delaware profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Woodside East?
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 16 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Woodside East
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Woodside East, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Woodside East
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Woodside East. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Ernies Country StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- PolyTech High SchoolUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- Woodside BP #2467Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Goose Creek WoodsideUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- DELAWARE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTUREBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- RITE AID #3748Brownfields · 0.9 mi
- DDA Department of AgricultureUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- PCMN-212Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- Kd13-09Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- Fifer FarmsUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- Chambers Dodge Truck CenterUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- Billings PropertyUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Woodside East'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 Woodside East.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Woodside East
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Woodside East
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
Check your specific parcel in Woodside East
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 Woodside East average
Your land is one point inside Woodside East
Everything above resolves to Woodside East as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Woodside East Average
Woodside East Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Woodside East
- ●One soil character for all of Woodside East
- ●Frost dates read at Woodside East's scale: Mar 24 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Woodside East's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Woodside East
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Woodside East, Delaware — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Woodside East averages can't show:
We read public map data around Woodside East — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Woodside East average
How we know this about Woodside East
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 Woodside East’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 Woodside East
When does frost risk typically end in Woodside East?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Woodside East 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 Woodside East?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Woodside East typically arrives around Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 2, so the watching starts about Oct 17 — about 237 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Woodside East?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Woodside East sees about 237 frost-free days — roughly Mar 24 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 14 to Nov 2, about 202 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Woodside East?
The federal record around Woodside East runs heavier than most — 695 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (395), 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 Woodside East?
From about Oct 17 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 16 (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 16. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Woodside East's scale — its 7b band and its 237-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Woodside East'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 Woodside East’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Woodside East's own scale — its own ~237-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,096 acres it covers and 695 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Woodside East's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Woodside East's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 24 and Nov 16 and the ~237-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 695 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Woodside East, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Woodside East's boundary and the 1,096 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~237-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Woodside East's own centroid, the Middle Atlantic Coastal PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Woodside Eastlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Woodside East's 1,096 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 Woodside East's 1,096 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Woodside East you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,096 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 Woodside East-wide figureread your own land →