Rainbow Lakes, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Rainbow Lakes, 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 Rainbow Lakes 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 Rainbow Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Rainbow Lakes — the short answer
Rainbow Lakes, New Jersey: USDA zone 6b, about 208 days between hard freezes, across 702 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~208
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 702 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 6b is Rainbow Lakes's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Rainbow Lakes's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Rainbow Lakes
Each reading below is measured for Rainbow Lakes itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredRainbow Lakes runs about 208 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
MeasuredRainbow Lakes sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Rainbow Lakes is in
Rainbow Lakes sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Rainbow Lakes's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Morris County is mostly Northeastern Highlands. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Rainbow Lakes
Every plant below cleared Rainbow Lakes's own zone 6b and its 208-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Rainbow Lakes?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — 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 Rainbow Lakes
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Rainbow Lakes, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Rainbow Lakes
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Rainbow Lakes. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- BOEING DISTRIBUTION, INC.Brownfields · 150 ft
- IMPLANT TECHNOLOGY INCToxics Release Inventory · 850 ft
- L.P. THEBAULT, A DIVISION OF EARTHCOLOR GROUPBrownfields · 1000 ft
- AVDEL DIV OF NEWMAN INDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- HEALTHCARE TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT (HTM) LOGISTICS WAREHOUSEBrownfields · 2000 ft
- NEWMAN INDUSTRIES INC AVDEL DIVToxics Release Inventory · 2200 ft
- OFFICE AT FOX HILLUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- RAINBOW LAKES PUMP STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- EPSTEIN LAND CO DISPLAY SHOP FRONT ENTRAUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- NJ TRANSIT STIRLING RAIL STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- DIXON BROTHERS OIL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- DIXON BROTHERS OIL INCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Rainbow Lakes'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 Rainbow Lakes.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Rainbow Lakes
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Rainbow Lakes
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Rainbow Lakes, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Rainbow Lakes — Superfund (79 sites) and PFAS (24 sites). 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.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Rainbow Lakes
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 Rainbow Lakes average
Your land is one point inside Rainbow Lakes
Everything above resolves to Rainbow Lakes as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 702 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 Rainbow Lakes Average
Rainbow Lakes Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Rainbow Lakes
- ●One soil character for all of Rainbow Lakes
- ●Frost dates read at Rainbow Lakes's scale: Apr 6 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Rainbow Lakes's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Rainbow Lakes
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Rainbow Lakes, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Rainbow Lakes averages can't show:
We read public map data around Rainbow Lakes — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Rainbow Lakes average
How we know this about Rainbow Lakes
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 Rainbow Lakes’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 Rainbow Lakes
When does frost risk typically end in Rainbow Lakes?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Rainbow Lakes typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
When is the first frost in Rainbow Lakes?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Rainbow Lakes typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 208 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Rainbow Lakes?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Rainbow Lakes sees about 208 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 17, about 173 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Rainbow Lakes?
The federal record around Rainbow Lakes runs heavier than most — 2,737 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,331), the nearest Brownfields 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 Rainbow Lakes?
From about Oct 1 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 Oct 31 (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 Oct 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Rainbow Lakes's scale — its 6b band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Rainbow Lakes'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 Rainbow Lakes’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Rainbow Lakes's own scale — its own ~208-day season between 28°F freezes, the 702 acres it covers and 2,737 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Rainbow Lakes's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Rainbow Lakes's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Oct 31 and the ~208-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,737 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Rainbow Lakes, the closest Brownfields record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Rainbow Lakes's boundary and the 702 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~208-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Rainbow Lakes sits in the Northern Piedmont — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Rainbow Lakeslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Rainbow Lakes's 702 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Morris County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Morris 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 Morris County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Rainbow Lakes's 702 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Rainbow Lakes you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 702 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields 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 Rainbow Lakes-wide figureread your own land →