Lakehurst, 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 Lakehurst, 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 Lakehurst 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 Lakehurst — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Lakehurst — the short answer
Lakehurst, New Jersey: USDA zone 7a, about 210 days between hard freezes, across 573 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 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~210
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 573 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 Lakehurst's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Lakehurst's 210-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Lakehurst
Each reading below is measured for Lakehurst itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLakehurst runs about 210 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
MeasuredLakehurst 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 Lakehurst is in
Lakehurst sits in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Lakehurst's own centroid rather than borrowed from Ocean County.
What Grows in Lakehurst
Every plant below cleared Lakehurst's own zone 7a and its 210-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Lakehurst?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. 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 1 — 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 Lakehurst
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Lakehurst, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Lakehurst
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Lakehurst. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 291420-- MW66Nitrate · 650 ft
- TIRE CRAFT OF LAKEHURSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- 290704-- Irr 1Nitrate · 1300 ft
- 290428-- PW 1RNitrate · 1400 ft
- 291086-- PW 12Nitrate · 1400 ft
- LAKEHURST WM PENN SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- LAKEHURST CIVIL DEFENSEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- GARDEN STATE LABORATORIES, LAKEHURSTBrownfields · 1700 ft
- LAKEHURST GAS STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2300 ft
- PMG 8725Underground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- LAKEHURST NAVAL AIR ENGINEERING STATIONToxics Release Inventory · 0.5 mi
- LAKEHURST NAVAL AIR ENGINEERING STATIONBrownfields · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Lakehurst'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 Lakehurst.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Lakehurst
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Lakehurst
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Lakehurst, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Lakehurst — Nitrate (542 sites) and Superfund (19 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Lakehurst
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 Lakehurst average
Your land is one point inside Lakehurst
Everything above resolves to Lakehurst as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 573 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 Lakehurst Average
Lakehurst Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Lakehurst
- ●One soil character for all of Lakehurst
- ●Frost dates read at Lakehurst's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Lakehurst's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Lakehurst
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Lakehurst, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Lakehurst averages can't show:
We read public map data around Lakehurst — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Lakehurst average
How we know this about Lakehurst
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 Lakehurst’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 Lakehurst
When does frost risk typically end in Lakehurst?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Lakehurst 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 Lakehurst?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Lakehurst typically arrives around Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 18, so the watching starts about Oct 2 — about 210 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Lakehurst?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Lakehurst sees about 210 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 18, about 175 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Lakehurst?
The federal record around Lakehurst runs heavier than most — 1,256 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (542), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.1 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 Lakehurst?
From about Oct 2 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 1 (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 1. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Lakehurst's scale — its 7a band and its 210-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Lakehurst'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 Lakehurst’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Lakehurst's own scale — its own ~210-day season between 28°F freezes, the 573 acres it covers and 1,256 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Lakehurst's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Lakehurst's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Nov 1 and the ~210-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,256 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Lakehurst, the closest Nitrate record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Lakehurst's boundary and the 573 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~210-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Lakehurst's own centroid, the Atlantic Coastal Pine BarrensUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Lakehurstlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Lakehurst's 573 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Ocean County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Ocean 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 Ocean County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Lakehurst's 573 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Lakehurst you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 573 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.1 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 Lakehurst-wide figureread your own land →