Morris County, in New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Morris County lies within the New Jersey Skylands (Northwest Highlands) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Morris County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Morris County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. 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 Morris County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Morris County — the short answer
Morris County, New Jersey: USDA zone 6b, about 198 days between hard freezes, across 295K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~198
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 295K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 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 6b is Morris County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Morris County's 198-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Morris County
Across a year, Morris County accumulates about 2,731 growing degree days above 50°F, about 591 fewer than the middle New Jersey county — ahead of 2 of New Jersey’s 21 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Morris County
Across Morris County, the ground is predominantly Ultisols, where Rockaway, Parker, and Gladstone are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–5.8, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Ultisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
20%
Hydric soils
20%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Morris County
The USDA soil survey maps 32% of Morris County as well drained — but another 53% drains differently: 14% somewhat excessively drained, 11% poorly drained.
Rockaway is the most extensive named soil at 21% of mapped acres, then Parker (13%) and Gladstone (11%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Morris County
Each reading below is measured for Morris County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Morris County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Morris County runs about pH 5.0–5.8, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Wet ground
MeasuredAbout 20% of Morris County is mapped as hydric — wetland — soil.
If your lot falls in one of those pockets, a standard in-ground bed will fight waterlogging all season, and roots that need air will struggle.
Check how your own ground drains before you dig; raised beds or moisture-loving plantings turn a wet corner from a problem into a niche.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredMorris County runs about 198 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
The kind of country Morris County is in
Morris County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Northeastern Highlands (71%) and Northern Piedmont (28%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Morris County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Morris County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 198-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile.
Is it too late to plant in Morris County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 26 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even past midsummer there is room for a true fall garden here, and garlic planted near the close carries the momentum into next year.
Documented around Morris County
Spotted lanternfly documented 4 miles from Morris County, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
- Japanese beetle28 documented records
- monarch butterfly261 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Morris County
USGS estimates 1,064 lb of Glyphosate on Morris County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Atrazine (706 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (539 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Morris County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Morris County — 3,005 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 67 Superfund sites. Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
Morris County carries one of the heavier federal records we track — and that's not a verdict on your yard. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis: nothing here says any particular parcel is affected. It does earn one concrete step — before food beds go in the ground, a professional soil test tells you exactly what you're working with, and raised beds with clean imported soil grow well almost anywhere in the meantime.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Morris County
Closest first, across Morris County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- WAWA# 8434Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- MILLBROOK SUNOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- SPEEDY OIL RECOVERY CORPBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- WOROCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- KAHANT ELECTRIC SUPPLY COUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- CURLEY STONE CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- RANDOLPH TWP FIREHOUSE #3Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- MT FREEDOM RCLMUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- RANDOLPH TWP BD OF ED HIGH SCHOOLBrownfields · 1.0 mi
- PAL PIKE ASOCIATESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- KMART 4397Underground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- LUKOIL #57281Underground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Morris County'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 Morris County.
Sources Checked
across Morris County
Severity Distribution
across Morris County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Morris County, two things run higher than the national average across Morris County — Superfund (67 sites) and PFAS (34 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.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Morris County
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 Morris County average
Your land is one point inside Morris County
Everything above resolves to Morris County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 295K 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 county 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 county average.
Your Lot vs the Morris County Average
Morris County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Morris County
- ●One soil character for all of Morris County
- ●Frost dates read at Morris County's scale: Apr 11 to Oct 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Morris County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Morris County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Morris County, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Morris County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Morris County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Morris County average
How we know this about Morris County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Morris County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Morris County
When does frost risk typically end in Morris County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Morris County typically lands around Apr 11, 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 May 2.
How long is the growing season in Morris County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Morris County sees about 198 frost-free days — roughly Apr 11 through Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 2 to Oct 12, about 163 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Morris County?
The federal record around Morris County runs heavier than most — 3,005 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,484), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.6 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.
Everything above is measured at Morris County's scale — its 6b band and its 198-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Morris County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads New Jersey's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Morris County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Morris County's own scale — its own ~198-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 3,005 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Morris County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Morris County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~198-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Morris CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 3,005 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Brownfields record about 0.6 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Morris County's boundary and the 295,057 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~198-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Morris County spans, Northeastern Highlands the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Morris County for 2 tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Morris County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every New Jersey grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom New Jersey
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Morris County — the ~198 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Morris County's 295,057 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 3,005 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Morris Countyread your own land →