Pennington, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Pennington, 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 Pennington 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 Pennington — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Pennington — the short answer
Pennington, New Jersey: USDA zone 7a, about 223 days between hard freezes, across 615 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 9
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~223
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 615 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 Pennington's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pennington's 223-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Pennington
Each reading below is measured for Pennington itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPennington runs about 223 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
MeasuredPennington 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 Pennington is in
Pennington sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Pennington's own centroid rather than borrowed from Mercer County.
What Grows in Pennington
Every plant below cleared Pennington's own zone 7a and its 223-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Pennington?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 3; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 9 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Pennington
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Pennington, first recorded 2018. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Pennington
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Pennington. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NJ BELL TELEPHONEUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- EAST CURLIS ST PUMP STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- THE PENNINGTON SCHOOLBrownfields · 1300 ft
- 21 BURD STREETUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- KRIEGNER TRAVELUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- PENNINGTON SCHOOLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- HOPEWELL VALLEY RGNL BD OF EDBrownfields · 2400 ft
- HOPEWELL VALLEY REG BD OF EDUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- SKED ST PUMP STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- HOUR GLASS CLEANERSBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- 210200-- PW 3Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- 210275-- PW 7Nitrate · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pennington'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 Pennington.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Pennington
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Pennington
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pennington, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 35 sites within ~10 miles of Pennington. 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 Pennington
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 Pennington average
Your land is one point inside Pennington
Everything above resolves to Pennington as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 615 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 Pennington Average
Pennington Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Pennington
- ●One soil character for all of Pennington
- ●Frost dates read at Pennington's scale: Mar 31 to Nov 9
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pennington's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Pennington
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pennington, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pennington averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pennington — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pennington average
How we know this about Pennington
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 Pennington’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 Pennington
When does frost risk typically end in Pennington?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pennington typically lands around Mar 31, 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 21.
When is the first frost in Pennington?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Pennington typically arrives around Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 26, so the watching starts about Oct 10 — about 223 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Pennington?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pennington sees about 223 frost-free days — roughly Mar 31 through Nov 9, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 21 to Oct 26, about 188 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pennington?
The federal record around Pennington runs heavier than most — 1,951 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,032), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Pennington?
From about Oct 10 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 9 (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 9. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Pennington's scale — its 7a band and its 223-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pennington'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 Pennington’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Pennington's own scale — its own ~223-day season between 28°F freezes, the 615 acres it covers and 1,951 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pennington's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pennington's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 31 and Nov 9 and the ~223-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,951 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Pennington, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Pennington's boundary and the 615 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~223-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Pennington's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Penningtonlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Pennington's 615 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Mercer County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Mercer 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 Mercer County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Pennington's 615 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Pennington you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 615 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.2 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 Pennington-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Jersey
Wider growing context
What grows across New JerseyPennington sits outside our named growing regions, so New Jersey as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides