Sweetwater, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Sweetwater, 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 Sweetwater 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 Sweetwater — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Sweetwater — the short answer
Sweetwater, New Jersey: USDA zone 7a, about 222 days between hard freezes, across 2K acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~222
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 2K 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 Sweetwater's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Sweetwater's 222-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Sweetwater
Each reading below is measured for Sweetwater itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredSweetwater runs about 222 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
MeasuredSweetwater 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 Sweetwater is in
Sweetwater sits in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Sweetwater's own centroid rather than borrowed from Atlantic County.
What Grows in Sweetwater
Every plant below cleared Sweetwater's own zone 7a and its 222-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Sweetwater?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 30 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Sweetwater
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Sweetwater, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Sweetwater
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Sweetwater. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- SWEETWATER CASINOUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- 010397-- OW21Nitrate · 0.8 mi
- FORKS LANDING MARINAUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- 010391-- DomNitrate · 0.9 mi
- ANTHONY AND CARMEN MERLINO SRUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- JOHNSONS GULF STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- BIRDSALL GENERAL STORE (FORMER)Underground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- 010399-- OW20Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- 010401-- OW26Nitrate · 0.9 mi
- 010400-- OW22Nitrate · 1.0 mi
- 010405-- OW17 Thrstn AvNitrate · 1.1 mi
- 010406-- OW18Nitrate · 1.3 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Sweetwater'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 Sweetwater.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Sweetwater
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Sweetwater
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Sweetwater, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Sweetwater — Nitrate (406 sites) and Superfund (14 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Sweetwater
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 Sweetwater average
Your land is one point inside Sweetwater
Everything above resolves to Sweetwater as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 2K 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 Sweetwater Average
Sweetwater Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Sweetwater
- ●One soil character for all of Sweetwater
- ●Frost dates read at Sweetwater's scale: Mar 30 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Sweetwater's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Sweetwater
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Sweetwater, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Sweetwater averages can't show:
We read public map data around Sweetwater — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Sweetwater average
How we know this about Sweetwater
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 Sweetwater’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 Sweetwater
When does frost risk typically end in Sweetwater?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Sweetwater typically lands around Mar 30, 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 20.
When is the first frost in Sweetwater?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Sweetwater typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 222 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Sweetwater?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Sweetwater sees about 222 frost-free days — roughly Mar 30 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 20 to Oct 24, about 187 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Sweetwater?
The federal record around Sweetwater is a meaningful one — 699 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (406), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 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 Sweetwater?
From about Oct 8 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 7 (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 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Sweetwater's scale — its 7a band and its 222-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Sweetwater'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 Sweetwater’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Sweetwater's own scale — its own ~222-day season between 28°F freezes, the 2,282 acres it covers and 699 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Sweetwater's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Sweetwater's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 30 and Nov 7 and the ~222-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 699 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Sweetwater, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Sweetwater's boundary and the 2,282 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~222-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Sweetwater's own centroid, the Atlantic Coastal Pine BarrensUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Sweetwaterlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Sweetwater's 2,282 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Atlantic County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Atlantic 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 Atlantic County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Sweetwater's 2,282 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Sweetwater you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 2,282 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.8 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 Sweetwater-wide figureread your own land →
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