Carteret, New Jersey, 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.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Carteret, 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 Carteret 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 Carteret — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Carteret — the short answer
Carteret, New Jersey: USDA zone 7b, about 250 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~250
- 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 7b is Carteret's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Carteret's 250-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Carteret
Each reading below is measured for Carteret itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCarteret 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
MeasuredCarteret 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 Carteret is in
Carteret sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Carteret's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Middlesex County is mostly Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Carteret
Every plant below cleared Carteret's own zone 7b and its 250-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Carteret?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 27 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around Carteret
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Carteret, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Carteret
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Carteret. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RACESTAR INC DBA GULFUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- BP PRODUCTS NORTH AMERICA INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- COSTA & JOAO AMOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- CARTERET TRUCK RACK TERMINALToxics Release Inventory · 1300 ft
- CARTERET TRUCK RACK TERMINALBrownfields · 1300 ft
- BASF CORP COATINGS & INK DIVBrownfields · 1600 ft
- BASF CORP COATINGS & INK DIVToxics Release Inventory · 1600 ft
- RACESTARUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- SANJAYSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- VERIZON CARTERET CO (29250)Underground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- GOODYEAR TIRE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- GOODYEAR TIRE CENTER 5643Underground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Carteret'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 Carteret.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Carteret
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Carteret
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Carteret, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 114 sites within ~10 miles of Carteret. 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 Carteret
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 Carteret average
Your land is one point inside Carteret
Everything above resolves to Carteret 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 Carteret Average
Carteret Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Carteret
- ●One soil character for all of Carteret
- ●Frost dates read at Carteret's scale: Mar 22 to Nov 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Carteret's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Carteret
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Carteret, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Carteret averages can't show:
We read public map data around Carteret — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Carteret average
How we know this about Carteret
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 Carteret’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 Carteret
When does frost risk typically end in Carteret?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Carteret typically lands around Mar 22, 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 12.
When is the first frost in Carteret?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Carteret typically arrives around Nov 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 13, so the watching starts about Oct 28 — about 250 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Carteret?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Carteret sees about 250 frost-free days — roughly Mar 22 through Nov 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 12 to Nov 13, about 215 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Carteret?
The federal record around Carteret runs heavier than most — 5,416 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (3,198), 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 Carteret?
From about Oct 28 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 27 (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 27. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Carteret's scale — its 7b band and its 250-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Carteret'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 Carteret’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Carteret's own scale — its own ~250-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,810 acres it covers and 5,416 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Carteret's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Carteret's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 22 and Nov 27 and the ~250-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 5,416 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Carteret, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Carteret's boundary and the 2,810 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~250-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Carteret sits in the Northern Piedmont — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Carteretlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Carteret's 2,810 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Middlesex County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Middlesex 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 Middlesex County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Carteret's 2,810 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Carteret you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,810 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 Carteret-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Jersey
Wider growing context
What grows across New JerseyCarteret sits outside our named growing regions, so New Jersey as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides