Clyde, 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.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Clyde, 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 Clyde 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 Clyde — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Clyde — the short answer
Clyde, New Jersey: USDA zone 7a, about 219 days between hard freezes, across 245 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~219
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 245 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 Clyde's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Clyde's 219-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Clyde
Each reading below is measured for Clyde itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredClyde runs about 219 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
MeasuredClyde 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 Clyde is in
Clyde sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Clyde's own centroid rather than borrowed from Somerset County.
What Grows in Clyde
Every plant below cleared Clyde's own zone 7a and its 219-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Clyde?
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 Mar 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — 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 Clyde
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Clyde, first recorded 2018. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Clyde
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Clyde. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- RWJ BARNABAS HEATH - SOMERSET CHEST & INTENSIVE CARE MEDBrownfields · 850 ft
- ACCESS BIO, INC.Brownfields · 850 ft
- UNIVERSAL PRESERVACHEM INC @ MURRAY IND PKBrownfields · 900 ft
- AGILEXToxics Release Inventory · 1700 ft
- AGILEX FLAVORS & FRANGRANCESBrownfields · 1700 ft
- PERSPECTIVE THERAPEUTICSBrownfields · 1700 ft
- RECYCLE 4 TOMORROWBrownfields · 1700 ft
- FRANKLIN TWP SEW AUTHUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- LOREAL USA PRODUCTS INCToxics Release Inventory · 2400 ft
- LOREAL USA PRODUCTS INCBrownfields · 2400 ft
- EQUIPMENT ERECTORS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- BENNETTS LANE PUMPING STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Clyde'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 Clyde.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Clyde
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Clyde
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Clyde, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Clyde — Superfund (88 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (256 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.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Clyde
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 Clyde average
Your land is one point inside Clyde
Everything above resolves to Clyde as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 245 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 Clyde Average
Clyde Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Clyde
- ●One soil character for all of Clyde
- ●Frost dates read at Clyde's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Clyde's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Clyde
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Clyde, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Clyde averages can't show:
We read public map data around Clyde — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Clyde average
How we know this about Clyde
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 Clyde’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 Clyde
When does frost risk typically end in Clyde?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Clyde typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
When is the first frost in Clyde?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Clyde typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 219 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Clyde?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Clyde sees about 219 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 22, about 184 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Clyde?
The federal record around Clyde runs heavier than most — 3,229 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,662), the nearest Brownfields 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 Clyde?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Clyde's scale — its 7a band and its 219-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Clyde'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 Clyde’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Clyde's own scale — its own ~219-day season between 28°F freezes, the 245 acres it covers and 3,229 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Clyde's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Clyde's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 5 and the ~219-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,229 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Clyde, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Clyde's boundary and the 245 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~219-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Clyde's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Clydelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Clyde's 245 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Somerset County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Somerset 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 Somerset County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Clyde's 245 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Clyde you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 245 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Clyde-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Jersey
Wider growing context
What grows across New JerseyClyde sits outside our named growing regions, so New Jersey as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides