East Orange, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 East Orange, 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 Orange 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 Orange — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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East Orange — the short answer
East Orange, New Jersey: USDA zone 7a, about 239 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 19
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~239
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 3K 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 Orange's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against East Orange's 239-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in East Orange
Each reading below is measured for East Orange itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredEast Orange runs about 239 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 Orange 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 Orange is in
East Orange sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at East Orange's own centroid rather than borrowed from Essex County.
What Grows in East Orange
Every plant below cleared East Orange's own zone 7a and its 239-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in East Orange?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 19 — 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 East Orange
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from East Orange, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near East Orange
Closest first, within ~10 miles of East Orange. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- EAST ORANGE CITY BD OF ED HIGH SCHOOL FORMERBrownfields · 450 ft
- 10 NORTH WALNUT STREETUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- SERVICE BUILDINGUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- 11 WINANS STREET FORMERLYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- EAST ORANGE FIRE DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- B AND A EAST ORANGE INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- AMERICAN BODY & EQUIPMENT INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- 15 17 NORTH ARLINGTON AVENUEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- FLORIDIAN CLEANERS @ CITY HALL PLAZAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- 68 CITY HALL PLAZA VACANT LANDBrownfields · 1300 ft
- EXXONMOBIL CORP 31677 – REMEDIAL ACTIVITIESBrownfields · 1400 ft
- DARDEN'S EXXON 31677Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from East Orange'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 Orange.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of East Orange
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of East Orange
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around East Orange, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of East Orange — Superfund (211 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (597 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Orange
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 Orange average
Your land is one point inside East Orange
Everything above resolves to East Orange as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 city 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 Orange Average
East Orange Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across East Orange
- ●One soil character for all of East Orange
- ●Frost dates read at East Orange's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 19
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not East Orange's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in East Orange
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in East Orange, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that East Orange averages can't show:
We read public map data around East Orange — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the East Orange average
How we know this about East Orange
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at East Orange’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 city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-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 Orange
When does frost risk typically end in East Orange?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in East Orange typically lands around Mar 25, 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 15.
When is the first frost in East Orange?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in East Orange typically arrives around Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 5, so the watching starts about Oct 20 — about 239 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in East Orange?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, East Orange sees about 239 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 19, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Nov 5, about 204 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in East Orange?
The federal record around East Orange runs heavier than most — 8,603 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (5,429), the nearest Brownfields 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 Orange?
From about Oct 20 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 19 (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 19. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at East Orange's scale — its 7a band and its 239-day season. Your yard writes its own version of East Orange'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 Orange’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at East Orange's own scale — its own ~239-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,514 acres it covers and 8,603 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- East Orange's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- East Orange's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 25 and Nov 19 and the ~239-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 8,603 documented contamination sites on the federal record near East Orange, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- East Orange's boundary and the 2,514 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~239-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at East Orange's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of East Orangelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so East Orange's 2,514 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Essex County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Essex 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 Essex County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among East Orange's 2,514 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of East Orange you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,514 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Orange-wide figureread your own land →