Kearny, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Expect cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Kearny, 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 Kearny 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 Kearny — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Kearny — the short answer
Kearny, New Jersey: USDA zone 7b, about 251 days between hard freezes, across 6K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~251
- 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 7b is Kearny's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Kearny's 251-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Kearny
Each reading below is measured for Kearny itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredKearny runs about 251 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
MeasuredKearny sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b.
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 Kearny is in
Kearny sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Kearny's own centroid rather than borrowed from Hudson County.
What Grows in Kearny
Every plant below cleared Kearny's own zone 7b and its 251-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Kearny?
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 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 27 — 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 Kearny
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Kearny, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Kearny
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Kearny. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- KEARNY WATER DEPARTMENTPFAS · 25 ft
- AMTRAK SUBSTATION #41Brownfields · 800 ft
- CHEMICAL LAND HOLDINGS INCBrownfields · 800 ft
- KARLSHAMNS USA INCToxics Release Inventory · 900 ft
- KEARNY DRUM DUMP #2Superfund · 2500 ft
- DIAMOND HEAD OIL REFINERY DIV.Superfund · 0.6 mi
- KEARNY GENERATING STATIONToxics Release Inventory · 0.6 mi
- CAMPBELL DOUGLAS FORRESTER FOUNDRY COBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- PHARACHEM LLCBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- G&S TECHNOLOGIESBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- KOPPERS CO INC /SEABOARD PLANTSuperfund · 0.6 mi
- CAMPBELL FOUNDRY COUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Kearny'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 Kearny.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Kearny
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Kearny
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Kearny, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 208 sites within ~10 miles of Kearny. 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.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Kearny
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 Kearny average
Your land is one point inside Kearny
Everything above resolves to Kearny 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 Kearny Average
Kearny Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Kearny
- ●One soil character for all of Kearny
- ●Frost dates read at Kearny's scale: Mar 21 to Nov 27
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Kearny's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Kearny
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Kearny, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Kearny averages can't show:
We read public map data around Kearny — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Kearny average
How we know this about Kearny
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 Kearny’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 Kearny
When does frost risk typically end in Kearny?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Kearny typically lands around Mar 21, 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 11.
When is the first frost in Kearny?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Kearny typically arrives around Nov 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 13, so the watching starts about Oct 28 — about 251 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Kearny?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Kearny sees about 251 frost-free days — roughly Mar 21 through Nov 27, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 11 to Nov 13, about 216 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Kearny?
The federal record around Kearny runs heavier than most — 13,813 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (8,008), 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 Kearny?
From about Oct 28 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 27 (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 27. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Kearny's scale — its 7b band and its 251-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Kearny'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 Kearny’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Kearny's own scale — its own ~251-day season between 28°F freezes, the 5,660 acres it covers and 13,813 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Kearny's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Kearny's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 21 and Nov 27 and the ~251-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 13,813 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Kearny, the closest PFAS record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Kearny's boundary and the 5,660 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~251-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Kearny's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Kearnylydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Kearny's 5,660 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Hudson County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Hudson 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 Hudson County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Kearny's 5,660 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Kearny you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 5,660 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 Kearny-wide figureread your own land →