Silver Ridge, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Well-matched crops include cabbage, pawpaw, california poppy, and collard greens, and the gap between "grows in the area" and "grows in your yard" is closed by soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Silver Ridge, 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 Silver Ridge 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 Silver Ridge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Silver Ridge — the short answer
Silver Ridge, New Jersey: USDA zone 7a, about 206 days between hard freezes, across 298 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~206
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 298 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 Silver Ridge's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Silver Ridge's 206-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Silver Ridge
Each reading below is measured for Silver Ridge itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSilver Ridge runs about 206 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
MeasuredSilver Ridge 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 Silver Ridge is in
Silver Ridge sits in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Silver Ridge's own centroid rather than borrowed from Ocean County.
What Grows in Silver Ridge
Every plant below cleared Silver Ridge's own zone 7a and its 206-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Silver Ridge?
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 13; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 10 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 2 — 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 Silver Ridge
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Silver Ridge, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Silver Ridge
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Silver Ridge. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 290928-- PW 34Nitrate · 2400 ft
- RF DOSS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- 617 ROUTE 37 WESTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- DELTAUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- CARDINAL WM PENNUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- MOBIL SERVICE STATION 12AFKUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- PARCEL 2R182Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- LUKOIL #57280Underground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- NJDOT - LAKEWOOD FACILITYBrownfields · 0.6 mi
- AUTOZONE #6771Brownfields · 0.6 mi
- CLEAR TV CABLE ASSOCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Silver Ridge'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 Silver Ridge.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Silver Ridge
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Silver Ridge
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Silver Ridge, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Silver Ridge — Nitrate (500 sites) and Superfund (23 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
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 Silver Ridge
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 Silver Ridge average
Your land is one point inside Silver Ridge
Everything above resolves to Silver Ridge as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 298 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 Silver Ridge Average
Silver Ridge Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Silver Ridge
- ●One soil character for all of Silver Ridge
- ●Frost dates read at Silver Ridge's scale: Apr 10 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Silver Ridge's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Silver Ridge
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Silver Ridge, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Silver Ridge averages can't show:
We read public map data around Silver Ridge — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Silver Ridge average
How we know this about Silver Ridge
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 Silver Ridge’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 Silver Ridge
When does frost risk typically end in Silver Ridge?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Silver Ridge typically lands around Apr 10, 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 May 1.
When is the first frost in Silver Ridge?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Silver Ridge typically arrives around Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 19, so the watching starts about Oct 3 — about 206 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Silver Ridge?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Silver Ridge sees about 206 frost-free days — roughly Apr 10 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 1 to Oct 19, about 171 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Silver Ridge?
The federal record around Silver Ridge runs heavier than most — 1,389 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (644), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.4 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 Silver Ridge?
From about Oct 3 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 2 (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 2. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Silver Ridge's scale — its 7a band and its 206-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Silver Ridge'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 Silver Ridge’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Silver Ridge's own scale — its own ~206-day season between 28°F freezes, the 298 acres it covers and 1,389 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Silver Ridge's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Silver Ridge's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 10 and Nov 2 and the ~206-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 1,389 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Silver Ridge, the closest Nitrate record about 0.4 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Silver Ridge's boundary and the 298 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~206-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Silver Ridge's own centroid, the Atlantic Coastal Pine BarrensUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Silver Ridgelydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Silver Ridge's 298 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 Silver Ridge's 298 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Silver Ridge you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 298 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.4 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 Silver Ridge-wide figureread your own land →