Great Notch, 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 Great Notch, 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 Great Notch 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 Great Notch — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Great Notch — the short answer
Great Notch, New Jersey: USDA zone 7a, about 224 days between hard freezes, across 635 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 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~224
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 635 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 Great Notch's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Great Notch's 224-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Great Notch
Each reading below is measured for Great Notch itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredGreat Notch runs about 224 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
MeasuredGreat Notch 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 Great Notch is in
Great Notch sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Great Notch's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Passaic County is mostly Northeastern Highlands. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Great Notch
Every plant below cleared Great Notch's own zone 7a and its 224-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Great Notch?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. 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 10 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Great Notch
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Great Notch, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Great Notch
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Great Notch. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- MARTIN J DUGANUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- LEONARD DUJETSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- FRANCISCO AVE PUMP STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- GREAT NECK GATE HOUSE JC WTR DEPTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- SHELL SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- SIGLER EXCAVATING COMPANYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- NJ TRANSIT PARKING LOT 28 AT MSUUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- OVERLOOK CORPORATE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- WARD TRUCKING CORPUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- SCHMID LABORATORIES INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- DAIBES SVC STATION LITTLE FALLSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Great Notch'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 Great Notch.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Great Notch
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Great Notch
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Great Notch, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Great Notch — Superfund (172 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (464 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 Great Notch
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 Great Notch average
Your land is one point inside Great Notch
Everything above resolves to Great Notch as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 635 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 Great Notch Average
Great Notch Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Great Notch
- ●One soil character for all of Great Notch
- ●Frost dates read at Great Notch's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Great Notch's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Great Notch
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Great Notch, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Great Notch averages can't show:
We read public map data around Great Notch — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Great Notch average
How we know this about Great Notch
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 Great Notch’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 Great Notch
When does frost risk typically end in Great Notch?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Great Notch 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 Great Notch?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Great Notch typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 224 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Great Notch?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Great Notch sees about 224 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 27, about 189 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Great Notch?
The federal record around Great Notch runs heavier than most — 6,801 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (4,384), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Great Notch?
From about Oct 11 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 10 (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 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Great Notch's scale — its 7a band and its 224-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Great Notch'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 Great Notch’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Great Notch's own scale — its own ~224-day season between 28°F freezes, the 635 acres it covers and 6,801 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Great Notch's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Great Notch's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 10 and the ~224-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 6,801 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Great Notch, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Great Notch's boundary and the 635 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~224-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Great Notch sits in the Northern Piedmont — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Great Notchlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Great Notch's 635 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Passaic County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Passaic 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 Passaic County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Great Notch's 635 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Great Notch you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 635 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 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 Great Notch-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Jersey
Wider growing context
What grows across New JerseyGreat Notch sits outside our named growing regions, so New Jersey as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides