Moonachie, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Growers here do well with cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Moonachie, 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 Moonachie 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 Moonachie — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Moonachie — the short answer
Moonachie, New Jersey: USDA zone 7b, about 249 days between hard freezes, across 1K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~249
- 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 Moonachie's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Moonachie's 249-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Moonachie
Each reading below is measured for Moonachie itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredMoonachie runs about 249 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
MeasuredMoonachie 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 Moonachie is in
Moonachie sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Moonachie's own centroid rather than borrowed from Bergen County.
What Grows in Moonachie
Every plant below cleared Moonachie's own zone 7b and its 249-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Moonachie?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 22; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 22 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 26 — 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 Moonachie
Spotted lanternfly documented 4 miles from Moonachie, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Moonachie
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Moonachie. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FEDERAL EXPRESS CORPBrownfields · 1600 ft
- SWS INDUSTRIES INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- QUALITY PACKAGING SPECIALISTS INTERNATIONALBrownfields · 1800 ft
- UNITED SHOW CASE CO INCBrownfields · 1900 ft
- GIANT CARPET STORES OF AMERICA IUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- CAESAR PALACE PUMP STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- RYDER TRUCK RENTAL INC #866Underground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- PATERSON PRINTING INCBrownfields · 2300 ft
- PAN TECHNOLOGY CORPBrownfields · 2300 ft
- VERFLEX CO INCToxics Release Inventory · 2300 ft
- PAN TECHNOLOGY CORPToxics Release Inventory · 2300 ft
- PACE PRESS INCBrownfields · 2300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Moonachie'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 Moonachie.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Moonachie
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Moonachie
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Moonachie, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 187 sites within ~10 miles of Moonachie. 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 Moonachie
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 Moonachie average
Your land is one point inside Moonachie
Everything above resolves to Moonachie 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 Moonachie Average
Moonachie Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Moonachie
- ●One soil character for all of Moonachie
- ●Frost dates read at Moonachie's scale: Mar 22 to Nov 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Moonachie's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Moonachie
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Moonachie, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Moonachie averages can't show:
We read public map data around Moonachie — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Moonachie average
How we know this about Moonachie
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 Moonachie’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 Moonachie
When does frost risk typically end in Moonachie?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Moonachie typically lands around Mar 22, 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 12.
When is the first frost in Moonachie?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Moonachie typically arrives around Nov 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 12, so the watching starts about Oct 27 — about 249 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Moonachie?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Moonachie sees about 249 frost-free days — roughly Mar 22 through Nov 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 12 to Nov 12, about 214 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Moonachie?
The federal record around Moonachie runs heavier than most — 14,310 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (8,496), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.3 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 Moonachie?
From about Oct 27 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 26 (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 26. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Moonachie's scale — its 7b band and its 249-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Moonachie'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 Moonachie’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Moonachie's own scale — its own ~249-day season between 28°F freezes, the 1,107 acres it covers and 14,310 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Moonachie's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Moonachie's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 22 and Nov 26 and the ~249-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 14,310 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Moonachie, the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Moonachie's boundary and the 1,107 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~249-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Moonachie's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Moonachielydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Moonachie's 1,107 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Bergen County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Bergen 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 Bergen County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Moonachie's 1,107 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Moonachie you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 1,107 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 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 Moonachie-wide figureread your own land →