Alpine, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Alpine, 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 Alpine 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 Alpine — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Alpine — the short answer
Alpine, New Jersey: USDA zone 7a, about 243 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- 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
- ~243
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 4K 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 7a is Alpine's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Alpine's 243-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Alpine
Each reading below is measured for Alpine itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredAlpine runs about 243 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
MeasuredAlpine sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a.
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 Alpine is in
Alpine sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Alpine's own centroid rather than borrowed from Bergen County.
What Grows in Alpine
Every plant below cleared Alpine's own zone 7a and its 243-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Alpine?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Alpine
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Alpine, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Alpine
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Alpine. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- VWNJ TIMBERLINE TANKBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- AT&T ALPINE BOROUGHUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- MAINTENANCE AREAUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- ALPINE TOWER THEBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- ALPINE SCOUT CAMPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- ALPINE BOAT BASIN & MAINT.YARDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- MUSEUM SCHOOL 25Brownfields · 1.4 mi
- ALPINE TEXACO SERVICE STATION INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- ALPINE CITGO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.5 mi
- PALISADES INTERSTATE PARK COMM ADMIN BUILDINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- NYSDOTBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- SAINT JOHN'S RIVERSIDE HOSPITALBrownfields · 1.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Alpine'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 Alpine.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Alpine
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Alpine
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.
- •TRI facilities report what they release. Check the wind — downwind beds catch more of it.
Check your specific parcel in Alpine
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 Alpine average
Your land is one point inside Alpine
Everything above resolves to Alpine as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 Alpine Average
Alpine Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Alpine
- ●One soil character for all of Alpine
- ●Frost dates read at Alpine's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Alpine's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Alpine
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Alpine, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Alpine averages can't show:
We read public map data around Alpine — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Alpine average
How we know this about Alpine
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 Alpine’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 Alpine
When does frost risk typically end in Alpine?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Alpine typically lands around Mar 26, 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 16.
When is the first frost in Alpine?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Alpine 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 243 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Alpine?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Alpine sees about 243 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Nov 10, about 208 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Alpine?
The federal record around Alpine is a meaningful one — 4,949 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,525), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 Alpine?
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 Alpine's scale — its 7a band and its 243-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Alpine'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 Alpine’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Alpine's own scale — its own ~243-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,097 acres it covers and 4,949 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Alpine's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Alpine's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 24 and the ~243-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 4,949 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Alpine, the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Alpine's boundary and the 4,097 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~243-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Alpine's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Alpinelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Alpine's 4,097 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Bergen County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Bergen County
- The growing challenges every New Jersey grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom New Jersey
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Bergen County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Alpine's 4,097 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Alpine you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,097 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 Alpine-wide figureread your own land →