Browns Mills, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Browns Mills, 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 Browns Mills 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 Browns Mills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Browns Mills — the short answer
Browns Mills, New Jersey: USDA zone 7a, about 222 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~222
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 Browns Mills's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Browns Mills's 222-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Browns Mills
Each reading below is measured for Browns Mills itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBrowns Mills runs about 222 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
MeasuredBrowns Mills 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 Browns Mills is in
Browns Mills sits in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Browns Mills's own centroid rather than borrowed from Burlington County.
What Grows in Browns Mills
Every plant below cleared Browns Mills's own zone 7a and its 222-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Browns Mills?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 9 — 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 Browns Mills
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Browns Mills, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Browns Mills
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Browns Mills. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ACME #1908Brownfields · 0.5 mi
- BROWNS MILLS SUPPLY COUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- ESTATE OF NORMAN D HARKERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- EARLINES GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #5767Brownfields · 0.8 mi
- PEMBERTON TWP BD OF ED MAINTENANCE DEPTBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- SCHNEIDER SUPPLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- 050365-- Pemberton PW 4Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- PEMBERTON TWP WATER DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- CAPITAL HEALTH EMERGENCY SERVICES @ DEBORAHBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- DEBORAH HEART AND LUNG CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- DEBORAH HEART AND LUNG CENTERBrownfields · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Browns Mills'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 Browns Mills.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Browns Mills
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Browns Mills
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Browns Mills, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Browns Mills — Superfund (14 sites) and Nitrate (282 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Browns Mills
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 Browns Mills average
Your land is one point inside Browns Mills
Everything above resolves to Browns Mills as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Browns Mills Average
Browns Mills Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Browns Mills
- ●One soil character for all of Browns Mills
- ●Frost dates read at Browns Mills's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Browns Mills's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Browns Mills
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Browns Mills, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Browns Mills averages can't show:
We read public map data around Browns Mills — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Browns Mills average
How we know this about Browns Mills
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 Browns Mills’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 Browns Mills
When does frost risk typically end in Browns Mills?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Browns Mills typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Browns Mills?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Browns Mills typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 222 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Browns Mills?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Browns Mills sees about 222 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 26, about 187 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Browns Mills?
The federal record around Browns Mills runs heavier than most — 516 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (282), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.5 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 Browns Mills?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Browns Mills's scale — its 7a band and its 222-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Browns Mills'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 Browns Mills’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Browns Mills's own scale — its own ~222-day season between 28°F freezes, the 3,439 acres it covers and 516 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Browns Mills's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Browns Mills's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 9 and the ~222-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 516 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Browns Mills, the closest Brownfields record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Browns Mills's boundary and the 3,439 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~222-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Browns Mills's own centroid, the Atlantic Coastal Pine BarrensUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Browns Millslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Browns Mills's 3,439 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Burlington County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Burlington 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 Burlington County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Browns Mills's 3,439 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Browns Mills you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 3,439 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 Browns Mills-wide figureread your own land →