New Providence, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
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 New Providence, 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 New Providence 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 New Providence — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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New Providence — the short answer
New Providence, New Jersey: USDA zone 7a, about 215 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- 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
- ~215
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 New Providence's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against New Providence's 215-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in New Providence
Each reading below is measured for New Providence itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredNew Providence runs about 215 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
MeasuredNew Providence 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 New Providence is in
New Providence sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at New Providence's own centroid rather than borrowed from Union County.
What Grows in New Providence
Every plant below cleared New Providence's own zone 7a and its 215-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in New Providence?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (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. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around New Providence
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from New Providence, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near New Providence
Closest first, within ~10 miles of New Providence. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- PHILIPS ELECTRONICSBrownfields · 650 ft
- OAKITE PRODUCTS INCBrownfields · 700 ft
- SCOTT PRESS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- SCOTT PRINTING CORP (FORMER)Underground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- ELECTRICAL INDUSTRIES CORPBrownfields · 1000 ft
- ELECTRICAL INDUSTRIES CORPToxics Release Inventory · 1000 ft
- FILTER RESOURCES CO (FRC)Brownfields · 1400 ft
- PROSIDYANBrownfields · 1400 ft
- FORMS DISTRIBUTION OFFICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- WRIST SHIP SUPPLYBrownfields · 1600 ft
- ATTISUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- NEW PROVIDENCE FUELUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from New Providence'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 New Providence.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of New Providence
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of New Providence
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around New Providence, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of New Providence — Superfund (112 sites) and Underground Storage Tanks (2,443 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.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in New Providence
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 New Providence average
Your land is one point inside New Providence
Everything above resolves to New Providence as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 New Providence Average
New Providence Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across New Providence
- ●One soil character for all of New Providence
- ●Frost dates read at New Providence's scale: Apr 4 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not New Providence's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in New Providence
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in New Providence, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that New Providence averages can't show:
We read public map data around New Providence — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the New Providence average
How we know this about New Providence
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 New Providence’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 New Providence
When does frost risk typically end in New Providence?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in New Providence typically lands around Apr 4, 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 25.
When is the first frost in New Providence?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in New Providence 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 215 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in New Providence?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, New Providence sees about 215 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 22, about 180 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in New Providence?
The federal record around New Providence runs heavier than most — 3,819 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (2,443), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 New Providence?
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 New Providence's scale — its 7a band and its 215-day season. Your yard writes its own version of New Providence'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 New Providence’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at New Providence's own scale — its own ~215-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,361 acres it covers and 3,819 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- New Providence's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- New Providence's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 4 and Nov 5 and the ~215-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 3,819 documented contamination sites on the federal record near New Providence, the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- New Providence's boundary and the 2,361 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~215-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at New Providence's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of New Providencelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so New Providence's 2,361 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Union County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Union 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 Union County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among New Providence's 2,361 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of New Providence you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,361 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.1 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 New Providence-wide figureread your own land →