National Park, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in National Park, 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 National Park 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 National Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
National Park — the short answer
National Park, New Jersey: USDA zone 7b, about 253 days between hard freezes, across 645 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 18
- 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
- ~253
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 645 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 National Park's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against National Park's 253-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in National Park
Each reading below is measured for National Park itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNational Park runs about 253 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
MeasuredNational Park 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 National Park is in
National Park sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at National Park's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Gloucester County is mostly Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in National Park
Every plant below cleared National Park's own zone 7b and its 253-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in National Park?
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 18; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 18 (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. With a season this long, “too late” mostly means “switch crops” — second sowings and a full fall garden are the norm, with garlic closing the year.
Documented around National Park
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from National Park, first recorded 2017. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near National Park
Closest first, within ~10 miles of National Park. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 150771-- National Park #2-PW-MNitrate · 450 ft
- 150770-- National Park #1-PW-LNitrate · 500 ft
- 150207-- NPWd 2/NPWd 5Nitrate · 1400 ft
- NATIONAL PARK LANDFILLBrownfields · 2000 ft
- 150206-- Discontinued 1Nitrate · 2100 ft
- 150780-- National Pk #10-OW-BmNitrate · 2100 ft
- 150778-- National Park #9-OW-BlNitrate · 2200 ft
- 151815-- ICP-NU02Nitrate · 2400 ft
- PSE&G NATIONAL PARK GENERATING STATIONBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- NATIONAL PARK PUMP STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- NATIONAL PARK UNKNOWN SHEENSuperfund · 0.6 mi
- NJDOT HIGHWAY RIGHT OF WAYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from National Park'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 National Park.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of National Park
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of National Park
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around National Park, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 102 sites within ~10 miles of National Park. 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 National Park
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 National Park average
Your land is one point inside National Park
Everything above resolves to National Park as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 645 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 National Park Average
National Park Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across National Park
- ●One soil character for all of National Park
- ●Frost dates read at National Park's scale: Mar 18 to Nov 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not National Park's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in National Park
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in National Park, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that National Park averages can't show:
We read public map data around National Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the National Park average
How we know this about National Park
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 National Park’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 National Park
When does frost risk typically end in National Park?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in National Park typically lands around Mar 18, 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 8.
When is the first frost in National Park?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in National Park 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 253 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in National Park?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, National Park sees about 253 frost-free days — roughly Mar 18 through Nov 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 8 to Nov 12, about 218 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in National Park?
The federal record around National Park runs heavier than most — 5,076 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,463), the nearest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile 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 National Park?
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 National Park's scale — its 7b band and its 253-day season. Your yard writes its own version of National Park'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 National Park’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at National Park's own scale — its own ~253-day season between 28°F freezes, the 645 acres it covers and 5,076 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- National Park's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- National Park's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 18 and Nov 26 and the ~253-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 5,076 documented contamination sites on the federal record near National Park, the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- National Park's boundary and the 645 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~253-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- National Park sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of National Parklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so National Park's 645 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Gloucester County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Gloucester 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 Gloucester County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among National Park's 645 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of National Park you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 645 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile 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 National Park-wide figureread your own land →