Long Valley, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
These conditions suit cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Long Valley, 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 Long Valley 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 Long Valley — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Long Valley — the short answer
Long Valley, New Jersey: USDA zone 6b, about 188 days between hard freezes, across 3K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~188
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 3K 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 6b is Long Valley's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Long Valley's 188-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Long Valley
Each reading below is measured for Long Valley itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredLong Valley runs about 188 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredLong Valley sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Long Valley is in
Long Valley sits in the Northeastern Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northern Forests. That is read at Long Valley's own centroid rather than borrowed from Morris County.
What Grows in Long Valley
Every plant below cleared Long Valley's own zone 6b and its 188-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Long Valley?
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 20; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 22 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Documented around Long Valley
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Long Valley, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Long Valley
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Long Valley. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LONG VALLEY FIRST AID SQUADUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- SPRINTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- WASHINGTON TWP MUAUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- LONG VALLEY SUNOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- DAVID ZIMMERMANUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- LONG VALLEY CITGOBrownfields · 1500 ft
- LONG VALLEY SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- AKAL GAS LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- WELSH FARMS INC FORMERUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- LONG VALLEY GAS LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- 271160-- Dom 1Nitrate · 2400 ft
- WELSH FARMS INCToxics Release Inventory · 2400 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Long Valley'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 Long Valley.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Long Valley
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Long Valley
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Long Valley, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Long Valley — PFAS (16 sites) and Nitrate (266 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Long Valley
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 Long Valley average
Your land is one point inside Long Valley
Everything above resolves to Long Valley as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 3K 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 Long Valley Average
Long Valley Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Long Valley
- ●One soil character for all of Long Valley
- ●Frost dates read at Long Valley's scale: Apr 17 to Oct 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Long Valley's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Long Valley
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Long Valley, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Long Valley averages can't show:
We read public map data around Long Valley — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Long Valley average
How we know this about Long Valley
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 Long Valley’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 Long Valley
When does frost risk typically end in Long Valley?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Long Valley typically lands around Apr 17, 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 May 8.
When is the first frost in Long Valley?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Long Valley typically arrives around Oct 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 8, so the watching starts about Sep 22 — about 188 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Long Valley?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Long Valley sees about 188 frost-free days — roughly Apr 17 through Oct 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 8 to Oct 8, about 153 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Long Valley?
The federal record around Long Valley runs heavier than most — 889 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (438), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Long Valley?
From about Sep 22 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 Oct 22 (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 Oct 22. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Long Valley's scale — its 6b band and its 188-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Long Valley'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 Long Valley’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Long Valley's own scale — its own ~188-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,922 acres it covers and 889 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Long Valley's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Long Valley's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 17 and Oct 22 and the ~188-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 889 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Long Valley, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Long Valley's boundary and the 2,922 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~188-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Long Valley's own centroid, the Northeastern HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Long Valleylydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Long Valley's 2,922 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Morris County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Morris 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 Morris County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Long Valley's 2,922 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Long Valley you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,922 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Long Valley-wide figureread your own land →