Deans, 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.
The conditions favor cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Deans, 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 Deans 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 Deans — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Deans — the short answer
Deans, New Jersey: USDA zone 7a, about 219 days between hard freezes, across 717 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
- 717 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 Deans's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Deans's 219-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Deans
Each reading below is measured for Deans itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredDeans 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
MeasuredDeans 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 Deans is in
Deans sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Deans'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 Deans
Every plant below cleared Deans'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 Deans?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. 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 Deans
Spotted lanternfly documented 4 miles from Deans, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Deans
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Deans. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HIGH GRADE BEV / VOLVO WHITEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- PIONEER WAREHOUSEBrownfields · 1900 ft
- REXAM BEVERAGE CAN CO FORMERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- JERSEY PAPER COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- TRIS PHARMA INCBrownfields · 1900 ft
- REXAM BEVERAGE CAN COToxics Release Inventory · 2000 ft
- HAGIN & DOUGHERTY REALTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- GEORGE BELLIZIOUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- CLIFFORD & MABEL SIGLEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- BIO LAB INCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- MALL MOTORSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- LOREAL USA INCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Deans'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 Deans.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Deans
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Deans
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Deans, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 49 sites within ~10 miles of Deans. 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.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Deans
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 Deans average
Your land is one point inside Deans
Everything above resolves to Deans as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 717 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 Deans Average
Deans Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Deans
- ●One soil character for all of Deans
- ●Frost dates read at Deans's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Deans's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Deans
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Deans, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Deans averages can't show:
We read public map data around Deans — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Deans average
How we know this about Deans
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 Deans’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 Deans
When does frost risk typically end in Deans?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Deans 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 Deans?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Deans 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 Deans?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Deans 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 Deans?
The federal record around Deans runs heavier than most — 2,511 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,164), 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 Deans?
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 Deans's scale — its 7a band and its 219-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Deans'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 Deans’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Deans's own scale — its own ~219-day season between 28°F freezes, the 717 acres it covers and 2,511 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Deans's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Deans's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 5 and the ~219-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,511 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Deans, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Deans's boundary and the 717 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~219-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Deans sits in the Northern Piedmont — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Deanslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Deans's 717 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 Deans's 717 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Deans you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 717 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 Deans-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Jersey
Wider growing context
What grows across New JerseyDeans sits outside our named growing regions, so New Jersey as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides