Seaside Heights, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
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 Seaside Heights, 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 Seaside Heights 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 Seaside Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Seaside Heights — the short answer
Seaside Heights, New Jersey: USDA zone 7b, about 243 days between hard freezes, across 395 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 25
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 23
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~243
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 395 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 Seaside Heights's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Seaside Heights's 243-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Seaside Heights
Each reading below is measured for Seaside Heights itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSeaside Heights runs about 243 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
MeasuredSeaside Heights 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 Seaside Heights is in
Seaside Heights sits in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Seaside Heights's own centroid rather than borrowed from Ocean County.
What Grows in Seaside Heights
Every plant below cleared Seaside Heights's own zone 7b and its 243-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Seaside Heights?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 25; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 25 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 23 — 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 Seaside Heights
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Seaside Heights, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Seaside Heights
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Seaside Heights. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 290539-- PW 3Nitrate · 200 ft
- SEASIDE HEIGHTS BORO PUBLIC WORKSUnderground Storage Tanks · 200 ft
- 290815-- Wd-6Nitrate · 250 ft
- OCEAN CNTY UTILITIES AUTH CPS-2Underground Storage Tanks · 400 ft
- 291365-- Seaside Heights Wd-7Nitrate · 450 ft
- 290538-- PW 1RNitrate · 650 ft
- 290536-- Discontinued 1Nitrate · 650 ft
- SEASIDE HEIGHTS BOROUnderground Storage Tanks · 650 ft
- 290537-- Seaside Heights PW 2Nitrate · 650 ft
- 290617-- PW 5Nitrate · 1100 ft
- SEASIDE HEIGHTS BORO DPWUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- BAYSIDE MARINA INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Seaside Heights'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 Seaside Heights.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Seaside Heights
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Seaside Heights
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Seaside Heights, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Seaside Heights — PFAS (12 sites) and Superfund (15 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Seaside Heights
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 Seaside Heights average
Your land is one point inside Seaside Heights
Everything above resolves to Seaside Heights as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 395 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 Seaside Heights Average
Seaside Heights Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Seaside Heights
- ●One soil character for all of Seaside Heights
- ●Frost dates read at Seaside Heights's scale: Mar 25 to Nov 23
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Seaside Heights's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Seaside Heights
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Seaside Heights, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Seaside Heights averages can't show:
We read public map data around Seaside Heights — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Seaside Heights average
How we know this about Seaside Heights
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 Seaside Heights’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 Seaside Heights
When does frost risk typically end in Seaside Heights?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Seaside Heights typically lands around Mar 25, 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 15.
When is the first frost in Seaside Heights?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Seaside Heights typically arrives around Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 9, so the watching starts about Oct 24 — about 243 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Seaside Heights?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Seaside Heights sees about 243 frost-free days — roughly Mar 25 through Nov 23, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 15 to Nov 9, about 208 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Seaside Heights?
The federal record around Seaside Heights runs heavier than most — 1,027 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (538), the nearest Nitrate 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 Seaside Heights?
From about Oct 24 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 23 (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 23. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Seaside Heights's scale — its 7b band and its 243-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Seaside Heights'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 Seaside Heights’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Seaside Heights's own scale — its own ~243-day season between 28°F freezes, the 395 acres it covers and 1,027 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Seaside Heights's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Seaside Heights's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 25 and Nov 23 and the ~243-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,027 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Seaside Heights, the closest Nitrate record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Seaside Heights's boundary and the 395 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~243-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Seaside Heights's own centroid, the Atlantic Coastal Pine BarrensUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Seaside Heightslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Seaside Heights's 395 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Ocean County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Ocean 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 Ocean County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Seaside Heights's 395 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Seaside Heights you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 395 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate 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 Seaside Heights-wide figureread your own land →