Matawan, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
On paper, cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Matawan, 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 Matawan 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 Matawan — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Matawan — the short answer
Matawan, New Jersey: USDA zone 7b, about 233 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~233
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 1K 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 Matawan's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Matawan's 233-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Matawan
Each reading below is measured for Matawan itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMatawan runs about 233 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
MeasuredMatawan 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 Matawan is in
Matawan sits in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Matawan's own centroid rather than borrowed from Monmouth County.
What Grows in Matawan
Every plant below cleared Matawan's own zone 7b and its 233-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Matawan?
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 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 16 — 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 Matawan
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Matawan, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Matawan
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Matawan. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- ENVIRO TECH INCBrownfields · 900 ft
- MOBIL OIL CORP 15-DJRUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- 930 RT 34 PROPERTYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- SUNOCO 0007-6927Underground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- LARSEN'S EXXON SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- COMPACT OPCO LLC DBA COMPACT AUTO BODYBrownfields · 1500 ft
- WALGREENS #5620Brownfields · 1500 ft
- CENTRAL JERSEY MATERIALS CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- SUNOCO #0007-6927Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- MATAWAN BORO HALLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- SOUTH RIVER METAL PRODUCTS COBrownfields · 2100 ft
- 250295-- PW 2Nitrate · 2300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Matawan'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 Matawan.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Matawan
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Matawan
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Matawan, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 42 sites within ~10 miles of Matawan. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Matawan
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 Matawan average
Your land is one point inside Matawan
Everything above resolves to Matawan as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 1K 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 Matawan Average
Matawan Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Matawan
- ●One soil character for all of Matawan
- ●Frost dates read at Matawan's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Matawan's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Matawan
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Matawan, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Matawan averages can't show:
We read public map data around Matawan — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Matawan average
How we know this about Matawan
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 Matawan’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 Matawan
When does frost risk typically end in Matawan?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Matawan typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in Matawan?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Matawan typically arrives around Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 2, so the watching starts about Oct 17 — about 233 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Matawan?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Matawan sees about 233 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Nov 2, about 198 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Matawan?
The federal record around Matawan runs heavier than most — 2,258 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,220), the nearest Brownfields 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 Matawan?
From about Oct 17 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 16 (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 16. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Matawan's scale — its 7b band and its 233-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Matawan'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 Matawan’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Matawan's own scale — its own ~233-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,450 acres it covers and 2,258 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Matawan's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Matawan's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 16 and the ~233-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,258 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Matawan, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Matawan's boundary and the 1,450 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~233-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Matawan's own centroid, the Atlantic Coastal Pine BarrensUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Matawanlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Matawan's 1,450 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Monmouth County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Monmouth 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 Monmouth County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Matawan's 1,450 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Matawan you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,450 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Matawan-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Jersey
Wider growing context
What grows across New JerseyMatawan sits outside our named growing regions, so New Jersey as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides