Port Norris, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Port Norris, 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 Port Norris 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 Port Norris — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Port Norris — the short answer
Port Norris, New Jersey: USDA zone 7b, about 239 days between hard freezes, across 4K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 20
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~239
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 4K 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 Port Norris's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Port Norris's 239-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Port Norris
Each reading below is measured for Port Norris itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredPort Norris runs about 239 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
MeasuredPort Norris 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 Port Norris is in
Port Norris sits in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Port Norris's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Cumberland County is mostly Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Port Norris
Every plant below cleared Port Norris's own zone 7b and its 239-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Port Norris?
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 26; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 26 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 20 — 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 Port Norris
Spotted lanternfly documented 1 miles from Port Norris, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Port Norris
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Port Norris. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LAWS & LAWS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- SAL & JOESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- PORT NORRIS EXPRESS COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- PORT NORRIS EXPRESS COBrownfields · 1.3 mi
- RICCI BROS SAND CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.4 mi
- COVIA SOLUTIONS LLC - DIVIDING CREEK PLANTBrownfields · 1.6 mi
- 111916-- CKKC-22Nitrate · 1.8 mi
- CAPALDI FARMSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- PORT NORRIS MARINA INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.8 mi
- 111914-- CKKC-20Nitrate · 1.9 mi
- 111917-- CKKC-23Nitrate · 1.9 mi
- 111915-- CKKC-21Nitrate · 1.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Port Norris'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 Port Norris.
Total Sites
239
within ~10 miles of Port Norris
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Port Norris
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Port Norris
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Port Norris, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Port Norris — Nitrate (70 sites) and Superfund (3 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Port Norris
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 Port Norris average
Your land is one point inside Port Norris
Everything above resolves to Port Norris as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 4K 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 Port Norris Average
Port Norris Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Port Norris
- ●One soil character for all of Port Norris
- ●Frost dates read at Port Norris's scale: Mar 26 to Nov 20
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Port Norris's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Port Norris
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Port Norris, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Port Norris averages can't show:
We read public map data around Port Norris — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Port Norris average
How we know this about Port Norris
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 Port Norris’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 Port Norris
When does frost risk typically end in Port Norris?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Port Norris typically lands around Mar 26, 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 16.
When is the first frost in Port Norris?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Port Norris typically arrives around Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 6, so the watching starts about Oct 21 — about 239 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Port Norris?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Port Norris sees about 239 frost-free days — roughly Mar 26 through Nov 20, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 16 to Nov 6, about 204 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Port Norris?
The federal record around Port Norris is a meaningful one — 239 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (125), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.1 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Port Norris?
From about Oct 21 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 20 (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 20. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Port Norris's scale — its 7b band and its 239-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Port Norris'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 Port Norris’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Port Norris's own scale — its own ~239-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,082 acres it covers and 239 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Port Norris's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Port Norris's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 26 and Nov 20 and the ~239-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 239 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Port Norris, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Port Norris's boundary and the 4,082 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~239-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Port Norris 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 Port Norrislydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Port Norris's 4,082 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cumberland County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cumberland 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 Cumberland County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Port Norris's 4,082 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Port Norris you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,082 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.1 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 Port Norris-wide figureread your own land →