Stone Harbor, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
The conditions favor cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Stone Harbor, 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 Stone Harbor 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 Stone Harbor — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Stone Harbor — the short answer
Stone Harbor, New Jersey: USDA zone 7b, about 250 days between hard freezes, across 909 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 17
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 22
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~250
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 909 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 Stone Harbor's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Stone Harbor's 250-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Stone Harbor
Each reading below is measured for Stone Harbor itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredStone Harbor runs about 250 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
MeasuredStone Harbor 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 Stone Harbor is in
Stone Harbor sits in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Stone Harbor's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cape May County.
What Grows in Stone Harbor
Every plant below cleared Stone Harbor's own zone 7b and its 250-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Stone Harbor?
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 17; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 17 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 22 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Stone Harbor
Spotted lanternfly documented 4 miles from Stone Harbor, first recorded 2018. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Stone Harbor
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Stone Harbor. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 090132-- PW 4Nitrate · 0.7 mi
- SNACK SHACK LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- 96TH ST WATER PUMPING STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- 96TH ST FIRE DEPARTMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- CAPTAIN CRAMER'S DOCKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- 090173-- PW 6Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- 090133-- Discontinued 2Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- STONE HARBOR WATER DEPTPFAS · 1.1 mi
- STONE HARBOR EXXONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- TW ENTERPRISESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1.1 mi
- 090086-- 1/Sh Manor1Nitrate · 1.2 mi
- 090135-- Stone Harbor PW 3RNitrate · 1.2 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Stone Harbor'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 Stone Harbor.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Stone Harbor
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Stone Harbor
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Stone Harbor, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Stone Harbor — PFAS (8 sites) and Superfund (8 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
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 Stone Harbor
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 Stone Harbor average
Your land is one point inside Stone Harbor
Everything above resolves to Stone Harbor as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 909 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 Stone Harbor Average
Stone Harbor Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across Stone Harbor
- ●One soil character for all of Stone Harbor
- ●Frost dates read at Stone Harbor's scale: Mar 17 to Nov 22
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Stone Harbor's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Stone Harbor
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Stone Harbor, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Stone Harbor averages can't show:
We read public map data around Stone Harbor — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Stone Harbor average
How we know this about Stone Harbor
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 Stone Harbor’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 Stone Harbor
When does frost risk typically end in Stone Harbor?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Stone Harbor typically lands around Mar 17, 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 7.
When is the first frost in Stone Harbor?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Stone Harbor typically arrives around Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 8, so the watching starts about Oct 23 — about 250 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Stone Harbor?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Stone Harbor sees about 250 frost-free days — roughly Mar 17 through Nov 22, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 7 to Nov 8, about 215 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Stone Harbor?
The federal record around Stone Harbor is a meaningful one — 508 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (315), the nearest Nitrate record about 0.7 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 Stone Harbor?
From about Oct 23 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 22 (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 22. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Stone Harbor's scale — its 7b band and its 250-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Stone Harbor'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 Stone Harbor’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Stone Harbor's own scale — its own ~250-day season between 28°F freezes, the 909 acres it covers and 508 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Stone Harbor's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Stone Harbor's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 17 and Nov 22 and the ~250-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 508 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Stone Harbor, the closest Nitrate record about 0.7 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Stone Harbor's boundary and the 909 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~250-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Stone Harbor's own centroid, the Atlantic Coastal Pine BarrensUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Stone Harborlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Stone Harbor's 909 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cape May County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cape May 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 Cape May County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Stone Harbor's 909 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Stone Harbor you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 909 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Nitrate record about 0.7 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 Stone Harbor-wide figureread your own land →