Baden, Maryland, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Baden, 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 Baden 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 Baden — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Baden — the short answer
Baden, Maryland: USDA zone 7b, about 238 days between hard freezes, across 18K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 23
- 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
- ~238
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 18K 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 Baden's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Baden's 238-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Baden
Each reading below is measured for Baden itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBaden runs about 238 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
MeasuredBaden 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 Baden is in
Baden sits in the Southeastern Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Baden's own centroid rather than borrowed from Prince George's County.
What Grows in Baden
Every plant below cleared Baden's own zone 7b and its 238-day season. Each card opens that plant's Maryland profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Baden?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 23; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 23 (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. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Baden
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Baden, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Baden
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Baden. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PG Ge 13Nitrate · 1.5 mi
- Baden WC 34046Underground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- MD-NCPPCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- Jae Ahn - Baden GasUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- Baden Vol. Fire Department #36Underground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- PG Ge 10Nitrate · 2.2 mi
- PG Ge 12Nitrate · 2.5 mi
- PG Ff 16Nitrate · 2.7 mi
- PG Fe 29Nitrate · 2.8 mi
- Nottingham VORUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- Old Nike SiteUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- PG Fe 25Nitrate · 3.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Baden'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 Baden.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Baden
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Baden
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Baden, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 7 sites within ~10 miles of Baden. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 Baden
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 Baden average
Your land is one point inside Baden
Everything above resolves to Baden as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 18K 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 Baden Average
Baden Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Baden
- ●One soil character for all of Baden
- ●Frost dates read at Baden's scale: Mar 23 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Baden's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Baden
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Baden, Maryland — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Baden averages can't show:
We read public map data around Baden — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Baden average
How we know this about Baden
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 Baden’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 Baden
When does frost risk typically end in Baden?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Baden typically lands around Mar 23, 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 13.
When is the first frost in Baden?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Baden 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 238 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Baden?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Baden sees about 238 frost-free days — roughly Mar 23 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 13 to Nov 2, about 203 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Baden?
The federal record around Baden is a meaningful one — 535 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (269), the nearest Nitrate record about 1.5 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 Baden?
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 Baden's scale — its 7b band and its 238-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Baden'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 Baden’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Baden's own scale — its own ~238-day season between 28°F freezes, the 17,665 acres it covers and 535 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Baden's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Baden's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 23 and Nov 16 and the ~238-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 535 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Baden, the closest Nitrate record about 1.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Baden's boundary and the 17,665 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~238-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Baden's own centroid, the Southeastern PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Badenlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Baden's 17,665 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Prince George's County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Prince George's 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 Prince George's County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Baden's 17,665 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Baden you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 17,665 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 1.5 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 Baden-wide figureread your own land →
More in Maryland
Wider growing context
What grows across MarylandBaden sits outside our named growing regions, so Maryland as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides