Franklin Lakes, 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.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Franklin 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 Franklin 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 Franklin Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Franklin Lakes — the short answer
Franklin Lakes, New Jersey: USDA zone 7a, about 212 days between hard freezes, across 6K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~212
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 6K 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 Franklin Lakes's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Franklin Lakes's 212-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Franklin Lakes
Each reading below is measured for Franklin Lakes itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredFranklin Lakes runs about 212 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
MeasuredFranklin Lakes 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 Franklin Lakes is in
Franklin Lakes sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Franklin Lakes's own centroid rather than borrowed from Bergen County.
What Grows in Franklin Lakes
Every plant below cleared Franklin Lakes's own zone 7a and its 212-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Franklin Lakes?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 3 — 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 Franklin Lakes
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Franklin Lakes, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Franklin Lakes
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Franklin Lakes. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SUEZ WATER NEW JERSEY FRANKLIN LAKESPFAS · 25 ft
- VWNJ FRANKLIN LAKES TANKBrownfields · 550 ft
- BECTON DICKINSON AND COUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- BECTON DICKINSONBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- CHRIST THE KING CEMETERYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- 030241-- Dom 1Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- RAMAPO INDIAN HILLS REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- FRANKLIN LAKES CITGOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- FRANKLIN LAKES PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEMUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- COLONY FLORIST & GIFTS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- 030253-- Dom 1Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- FRANKLIN LAKES BORO MUNICIPAL COMPLEXUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Franklin 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 Franklin Lakes.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Franklin Lakes
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Franklin Lakes
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Franklin Lakes, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Franklin Lakes — Superfund (75 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (2,199 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.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Franklin 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 Franklin Lakes average
Your land is one point inside Franklin Lakes
Everything above resolves to Franklin Lakes as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 6K 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 Franklin Lakes Average
Franklin Lakes Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Franklin Lakes
- ●One soil character for all of Franklin Lakes
- ●Frost dates read at Franklin Lakes's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 3
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Franklin Lakes's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Franklin Lakes
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Franklin Lakes averages can't show:
We read public map data around Franklin Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Franklin Lakes average
How we know this about Franklin 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 Franklin 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 Franklin Lakes
When does frost risk typically end in Franklin Lakes?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Franklin Lakes typically lands around Apr 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in Franklin Lakes?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Franklin Lakes typically arrives around Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 20, so the watching starts about Oct 4 — about 212 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Franklin Lakes?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Franklin Lakes sees about 212 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 20, about 177 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Franklin Lakes?
The federal record around Franklin Lakes runs heavier than most — 3,524 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,199), 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 Franklin Lakes?
From about Oct 4 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 3 (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 3. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Franklin Lakes's scale — its 7a band and its 212-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Franklin 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 Franklin Lakes’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Franklin Lakes's own scale — its own ~212-day season between 28°F freezes, the 6,025 acres it covers and 3,524 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Franklin Lakes's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Franklin Lakes's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Nov 3 and the ~212-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,524 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Franklin Lakes, the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Franklin Lakes's boundary and the 6,025 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~212-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Franklin Lakes's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Franklin Lakeslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Franklin Lakes's 6,025 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 Franklin Lakes's 6,025 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Franklin 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 6,025 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 Franklin Lakes-wide figureread your own land →