Old Tappan, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Old Tappan, 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 Old Tappan 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 Old Tappan — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Old Tappan — the short answer
Old Tappan, New Jersey: USDA zone 7a, about 234 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- 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 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~234
- 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 Old Tappan's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Old Tappan's 234-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Old Tappan
Each reading below is measured for Old Tappan itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredOld Tappan runs about 234 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
MeasuredOld Tappan 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 Old Tappan is in
Old Tappan sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Old Tappan's own centroid rather than borrowed from Bergen County.
What Grows in Old Tappan
Every plant below cleared Old Tappan's own zone 7a and its 234-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Old Tappan?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. 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 17 — 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 Old Tappan
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Old Tappan, first recorded 2021. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Old Tappan
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Old Tappan. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- OLD TAPPAN NJ0147Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- OLD TAPPAN INVESTORSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- PRENTICE-HALL INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- CVS PHARMACY #1224Brownfields · 0.7 mi
- OLD TAPPAN VOL FIRE CO 1Underground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- SKIRBALL CENTER FOR CARDIOVASCULAR RESCHBrownfields · 0.7 mi
- CRESTON ELECTRONICS - 88 RAMLAND RDBrownfields · 0.8 mi
- BORO OF OLD TAPPAN DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKSUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- YAMATO SCIENTIFIC AMERICA INCBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- METAL IMPROVEMENT COToxics Release Inventory · 0.9 mi
- VISION SCIENCES INCBrownfields · 0.9 mi
- NORTHERN VALLEY REG OLD TAPPAN HSBrownfields · 0.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Old Tappan'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 Old Tappan.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Old Tappan
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Old Tappan
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Old Tappan, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 52 sites within ~10 miles of Old Tappan. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 Old Tappan
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 Old Tappan average
Your land is one point inside Old Tappan
Everything above resolves to Old Tappan 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 Old Tappan Average
Old Tappan Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Old Tappan
- ●One soil character for all of Old Tappan
- ●Frost dates read at Old Tappan's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 17
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Old Tappan's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Old Tappan
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Old Tappan, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Old Tappan averages can't show:
We read public map data around Old Tappan — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Old Tappan average
How we know this about Old Tappan
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 Old Tappan’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 Old Tappan
When does frost risk typically end in Old Tappan?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Old Tappan 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 Old Tappan?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Old Tappan typically arrives around Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 3, so the watching starts about Oct 18 — about 234 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Old Tappan?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Old Tappan sees about 234 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 17, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Nov 3, about 199 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Old Tappan?
The federal record around Old Tappan runs heavier than most — 2,674 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,367), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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 Old Tappan?
From about Oct 18 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 17 (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 17. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Old Tappan's scale — its 7a band and its 234-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Old Tappan'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 Old Tappan’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Old Tappan's own scale — its own ~234-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,122 acres it covers and 2,674 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Old Tappan's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Old Tappan's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 17 and the ~234-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,674 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Old Tappan, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Old Tappan's boundary and the 2,122 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~234-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Old Tappan's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Old Tappanlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Old Tappan's 2,122 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 Old Tappan's 2,122 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Old Tappan you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,122 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.6 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 Old Tappan-wide figureread your own land →