Mizpah, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Mizpah, 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 Mizpah 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 Mizpah — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Mizpah — the short answer
Mizpah, New Jersey: USDA zone 7a, about 216 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~216
- 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 7a is Mizpah's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Mizpah's 216-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Mizpah
Each reading below is measured for Mizpah itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMizpah runs about 216 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
MeasuredMizpah 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 Mizpah is in
Mizpah sits in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Mizpah's own centroid rather than borrowed from Atlantic County.
What Grows in Mizpah
Every plant below cleared Mizpah's own zone 7a and its 216-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Mizpah?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 6; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 3 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — 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 Mizpah
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Mizpah, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Mizpah
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Mizpah. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 010713-- Mizpah DeepNitrate · 2600 ft
- RICHLAND GASUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.6 mi
- JOSEPH GRECOUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.7 mi
- TRI COUNTY EQUIPMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- SUNOCO SERVICE STATIONBrownfields · 1.8 mi
- RICHLAND AUTO FORMERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- RICHLAND GENERAL STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.9 mi
- 011407-- DomNitrate · 2.1 mi
- 011437-- Barrett DriveNitrate · 2.1 mi
- ST AUGUSTINE PREP SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.1 mi
- 011436-- Michaletti DriveNitrate · 2.2 mi
- 011406-- DomNitrate · 2.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Mizpah'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 Mizpah.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Mizpah
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Mizpah
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Mizpah, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Mizpah — Superfund (17 sites) and Nitrate (218 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Mizpah
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 Mizpah average
Your land is one point inside Mizpah
Everything above resolves to Mizpah 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 Mizpah Average
Mizpah Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Mizpah
- ●One soil character for all of Mizpah
- ●Frost dates read at Mizpah's scale: Apr 3 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Mizpah's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Mizpah
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Mizpah, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Mizpah averages can't show:
We read public map data around Mizpah — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Mizpah average
How we know this about Mizpah
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 Mizpah’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 Mizpah
When does frost risk typically end in Mizpah?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Mizpah typically lands around Apr 3, 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 24.
When is the first frost in Mizpah?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Mizpah typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 216 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Mizpah?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Mizpah sees about 216 frost-free days — roughly Apr 3 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 24 to Oct 22, about 181 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Mizpah?
The federal record around Mizpah runs heavier than most — 604 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (278), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.5 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 Mizpah?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Mizpah's scale — its 7a band and its 216-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Mizpah'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 Mizpah’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Mizpah's own scale — its own ~216-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,044 acres it covers and 604 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Mizpah's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Mizpah's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 3 and Nov 5 and the ~216-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 604 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Mizpah, the closest Nitrate record about 0.5 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Mizpah's boundary and the 1,044 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~216-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Mizpah's own centroid, the Atlantic Coastal Pine BarrensUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Mizpahlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Mizpah's 1,044 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Atlantic County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Atlantic 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 Atlantic County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Mizpah's 1,044 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Mizpah you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,044 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.5 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 Mizpah-wide figureread your own land →
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