Crandon Lakes, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Crandon Lakes, 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 Crandon Lakes 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 Crandon Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Crandon Lakes — the short answer
Crandon Lakes, New Jersey: USDA zone 6b, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 6b is Crandon Lakes's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Crandon Lakes's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Crandon Lakes
Each reading below is measured for Crandon Lakes itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCrandon Lakes runs about 200 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
MeasuredCrandon Lakes sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Crandon Lakes is in
Crandon Lakes sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Crandon Lakes's own centroid rather than borrowed from Sussex County.
What Grows in Crandon Lakes
Every plant below cleared Crandon Lakes's own zone 6b and its 200-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Crandon Lakes?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 27 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Crandon Lakes
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Crandon Lakes, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Crandon Lakes
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Crandon Lakes. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 370501-- DomNitrate · 0.7 mi
- THE BROOKSIDEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- HAMPTON TWP MUNICIPAL BLDGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- 370500-- D0MNitrate · 2.0 mi
- ALDERSGATE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
- C&V PAVING CONTRACTORS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.5 mi
- STOCKER BUS CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- 370499-- DomNitrate · 2.8 mi
- 370207-- Walpack Twp 4 ObsNitrate · 3.0 mi
- 370202-- Taylor ObsNitrate · 3.1 mi
- 370205-- Swartswood Park 5 ObsNitrate · 3.3 mi
- 370007-- Hemlock PondNitrate · 3.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Crandon Lakes'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 Crandon Lakes.
Total Sites
430
within ~10 miles of Crandon Lakes
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Crandon Lakes
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Crandon Lakes
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Crandon Lakes, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 168 sites within ~10 miles of Crandon Lakes. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Crandon Lakes
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 Crandon Lakes average
Your land is one point inside Crandon Lakes
Everything above resolves to Crandon Lakes as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Crandon Lakes Average
Crandon Lakes Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Crandon Lakes
- ●One soil character for all of Crandon Lakes
- ●Frost dates read at Crandon Lakes's scale: Apr 10 to Oct 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Crandon Lakes's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Crandon Lakes
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Crandon Lakes, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Crandon Lakes averages can't show:
We read public map data around Crandon Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Crandon Lakes average
How we know this about Crandon Lakes
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 Crandon Lakes’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 Crandon Lakes
When does frost risk typically end in Crandon Lakes?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Crandon Lakes typically lands around Apr 10, 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 1.
When is the first frost in Crandon Lakes?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Crandon Lakes typically arrives around Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 13, so the watching starts about Sep 27 — about 200 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Crandon Lakes?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Crandon Lakes sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Oct 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 13, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Crandon Lakes?
The federal record around Crandon Lakes is a meaningful one — 430 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (221), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.7 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 Crandon Lakes?
From about Sep 27 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 Oct 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 Oct 27. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Crandon Lakes's scale — its 6b band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Crandon Lakes'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 Crandon Lakes’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Crandon Lakes's own scale — its own ~200-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,635 acres it covers and 430 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Crandon Lakes's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Crandon Lakes's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Oct 27 and the ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 430 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Crandon Lakes, the closest Nitrate record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Crandon Lakes's boundary and the 1,635 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Crandon Lakes's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Crandon Lakeslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Crandon Lakes's 1,635 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Sussex County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Sussex 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 Sussex County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Crandon Lakes's 1,635 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Crandon Lakes you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,635 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.7 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 Crandon Lakes-wide figureread your own land →