Elmwood Park, 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.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Elmwood Park, 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 Elmwood Park 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 Elmwood Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Elmwood Park — the short answer
Elmwood Park, New Jersey: USDA zone 7a, about 237 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~237
- 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 7a is Elmwood Park's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Elmwood Park's 237-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Elmwood Park
Each reading below is measured for Elmwood Park itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredElmwood Park runs about 237 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
MeasuredElmwood Park 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 Elmwood Park is in
Elmwood Park sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Elmwood Park's own centroid rather than borrowed from Bergen County.
What Grows in Elmwood Park
Every plant below cleared Elmwood Park's own zone 7a and its 237-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Elmwood Park?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 18 — 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 Elmwood Park
Spotted lanternfly documented 0 miles from Elmwood Park, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Elmwood Park
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Elmwood Park. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ELMWOOD PARK WATER DEPTPFAS · 0 ft
- UNITED RENTALSUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- UNITED RENTALS NORTH AMERICA INCBrownfields · 800 ft
- XEROX CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- KREISLER INDUSTRIAL CORPBrownfields · 1000 ft
- ENGLE OOSTDYK INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- 247 MARKET ST PARTNERSHIPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- FRANK AND DOREEN INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- GAZZANI MOTORS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- PREMIUM TIRE & REPAIR SERVUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- RUDY'S SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- PERRELLYS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Elmwood Park'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 Elmwood Park.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Elmwood Park
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Elmwood Park
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Elmwood Park, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Elmwood Park — Superfund (146 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (445 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 Elmwood Park
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 Elmwood Park average
Your land is one point inside Elmwood Park
Everything above resolves to Elmwood Park 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 Elmwood Park Average
Elmwood Park Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Elmwood Park
- ●One soil character for all of Elmwood Park
- ●Frost dates read at Elmwood Park's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 18
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Elmwood Park's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Elmwood Park
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Elmwood Park, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Elmwood Park averages can't show:
We read public map data around Elmwood Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Elmwood Park average
How we know this about Elmwood Park
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 Elmwood Park’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 Elmwood Park
When does frost risk typically end in Elmwood Park?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Elmwood Park typically lands around Mar 26, 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 16.
When is the first frost in Elmwood Park?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Elmwood Park typically arrives around Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 4, so the watching starts about Oct 19 — about 237 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Elmwood Park?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Elmwood Park sees about 237 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Nov 4, about 202 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Elmwood Park?
The federal record around Elmwood Park runs heavier than most — 6,659 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (4,347), the nearest PFAS 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 Elmwood Park?
From about Oct 19 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 18 (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 18. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Elmwood Park's scale — its 7a band and its 237-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Elmwood Park'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 Elmwood Park’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Elmwood Park's own scale — its own ~237-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,692 acres it covers and 6,659 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Elmwood Park's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Elmwood Park's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 18 and the ~237-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 6,659 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Elmwood Park, the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Elmwood Park's boundary and the 1,692 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~237-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Elmwood Park's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Elmwood Parklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Elmwood Park's 1,692 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Bergen County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Bergen 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 Bergen County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Elmwood Park's 1,692 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Elmwood Park you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,692 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest PFAS 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 Elmwood Park-wide figureread your own land →