Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Aberdeen Proving Ground, 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 Aberdeen Proving Ground 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 Aberdeen Proving Ground — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Aberdeen Proving Ground — the short answer
Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland: USDA zone 7b, about 250 days between hard freezes, across 7K 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
- 7K 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 Aberdeen Proving Ground's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Aberdeen Proving Ground's 250-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Aberdeen Proving Ground
Each reading below is measured for Aberdeen Proving Ground itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredAberdeen Proving Ground 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
MeasuredAberdeen Proving Ground 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 Aberdeen Proving Ground is in
Aberdeen Proving Ground sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Aberdeen Proving Ground's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Harford County is mostly Northern Piedmont. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Aberdeen Proving Ground
Every plant below cleared Aberdeen Proving Ground's own zone 7b and its 250-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maryland profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Aberdeen Proving Ground?
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 24 — 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 Aberdeen Proving Ground
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Aberdeen Proving Ground, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Aberdeen Proving Ground
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Aberdeen Proving Ground. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND (MICHAELSVILLE LANDFILL)Superfund · 0.6 mi
- CITY OF ABERDEENPFAS · 1.8 mi
- US ARMY ABERDEEN PROVING GROUNDBrownfields · 2.0 mi
- US ARMY ABERDEEN PROVING GROUNDToxics Release Inventory · 2.0 mi
- HA Df 58Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- CITY LIGHT - POWER INC. ABERDEEN LAYDOWN YARD-ABERDEEN PROVING GROUNDBrownfields · 2.3 mi
- RAYTHEON TECHNOLOGIESBrownfields · 2.7 mi
- HA Cf 169Nitrate · 3.2 mi
- HARFORD COUNTY D.P.W.PFAS · 3.3 mi
- HA Cf 165Nitrate · 3.4 mi
- HA Cf 171Nitrate · 3.5 mi
- SUPERVALU INCBrownfields · 3.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Aberdeen Proving Ground'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 Aberdeen Proving Ground.
Total Sites
659
within ~10 miles of Aberdeen Proving Ground
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
9 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Aberdeen Proving Ground
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Aberdeen Proving Ground
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Aberdeen Proving Ground, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 9 sites within ~10 miles of Aberdeen Proving Ground. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Aberdeen Proving Ground
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 Aberdeen Proving Ground average
Your land is one point inside Aberdeen Proving Ground
Everything above resolves to Aberdeen Proving Ground as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 7K 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 Aberdeen Proving Ground Average
Aberdeen Proving Ground Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Aberdeen Proving Ground
- ●One soil character for all of Aberdeen Proving Ground
- ●Frost dates read at Aberdeen Proving Ground's scale: Mar 19 to Nov 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Aberdeen Proving Ground's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Aberdeen Proving Ground
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Aberdeen Proving Ground averages can't show:
We read public map data around Aberdeen Proving Ground — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Aberdeen Proving Ground average
How we know this about Aberdeen Proving Ground
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 Aberdeen Proving Ground’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 Aberdeen Proving Ground
When does frost risk typically end in Aberdeen Proving Ground?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Aberdeen Proving Ground 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 Aberdeen Proving Ground?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Aberdeen Proving Ground 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 Aberdeen Proving Ground?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Aberdeen Proving Ground 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 Aberdeen Proving Ground?
The federal record around Aberdeen Proving Ground runs heavier than most — 659 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (298), the nearest Superfund record about 0.6 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 Aberdeen Proving Ground?
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 Aberdeen Proving Ground's scale — its 7b band and its 250-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Aberdeen Proving Ground'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 Aberdeen Proving Ground’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Aberdeen Proving Ground's own scale — its own ~250-day season between 28°F freezes, the 7,126 acres it covers and 659 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Aberdeen Proving Ground's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Aberdeen Proving Ground's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 19 and Nov 24 and the ~250-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 659 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Aberdeen Proving Ground, the closest Superfund record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Aberdeen Proving Ground's boundary and the 7,126 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~250-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Aberdeen Proving Ground sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Aberdeen Proving Groundlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Aberdeen Proving Ground's 7,126 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Harford County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Harford County
- The growing challenges every Maryland grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Maryland
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Harford County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Aberdeen Proving Ground's 7,126 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Aberdeen Proving Ground you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 7,126 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Superfund record about 0.6 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 Aberdeen Proving Ground-wide figureread your own land →
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