East Franklin, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — 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, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in East Franklin, 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 East Franklin 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 East Franklin — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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East Franklin — the short answer
East Franklin, New Jersey: USDA zone 7a, about 220 days between hard freezes, across 697 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 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~220
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 697 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 East Franklin's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against East Franklin's 220-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in East Franklin
Each reading below is measured for East Franklin itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredEast Franklin runs about 220 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
MeasuredEast Franklin 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 East Franklin is in
East Franklin sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at East Franklin's own centroid rather than borrowed from Somerset County.
What Grows in East Franklin
Every plant below cleared East Franklin's own zone 7a and its 220-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in East Franklin?
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 6 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around East Franklin
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from East Franklin, first recorded 2018. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near East Franklin
Closest first, within ~10 miles of East Franklin. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NORA SHOPPING CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- RUTGER'S SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- 95315 GETTY VESPIAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- DELTAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- GLEN G HALE INC T/A HALE BUILTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- EDGEMERE @ SOMERSET APARTMENT COMPLEXUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- SOMERSET BPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- H K TIRE COUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- WAWA FOOD MARKET #8376Underground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- WAWA FOOD MARKET #8376Brownfields · 2600 ft
- CREAM O LAND DAIRY (FORMER)Underground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- SIMA MACHINEUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from East Franklin'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 East Franklin.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of East Franklin
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of East Franklin
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around East Franklin, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of East Franklin — Superfund (100 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (280 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 East Franklin
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 East Franklin average
Your land is one point inside East Franklin
Everything above resolves to East Franklin as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 697 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 East Franklin Average
East Franklin Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across East Franklin
- ●One soil character for all of East Franklin
- ●Frost dates read at East Franklin's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 6
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not East Franklin's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in East Franklin
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in East Franklin, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that East Franklin averages can't show:
We read public map data around East Franklin — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the East Franklin average
How we know this about East Franklin
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 East Franklin’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 East Franklin
When does frost risk typically end in East Franklin?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in East Franklin 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 East Franklin?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in East Franklin typically arrives around Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 23, so the watching starts about Oct 7 — about 220 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in East Franklin?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, East Franklin sees about 220 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 23, about 185 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in East Franklin?
The federal record around East Franklin runs heavier than most — 3,681 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,960), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 East Franklin?
From about Oct 7 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 6 (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 6. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at East Franklin's scale — its 7a band and its 220-day season. Your yard writes its own version of East Franklin'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 East Franklin’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at East Franklin's own scale — its own ~220-day season between 28°F freezes, the 697 acres it covers and 3,681 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- East Franklin's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- East Franklin's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 6 and the ~220-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,681 documented contamination sites on the federal record near East Franklin, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- East Franklin's boundary and the 697 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~220-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at East Franklin's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of East Franklinlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so East Franklin's 697 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 East Franklin's 697 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of East Franklin you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 697 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 East Franklin-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Jersey
Wider growing context
What grows across New JerseyEast Franklin sits outside our named growing regions, so New Jersey as a whole is its closest context here.