The College of New Jersey, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in The College of New Jersey, 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 The College of New Jersey 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 The College of New Jersey — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
The College of New Jersey — the short answer
The College of New Jersey, New Jersey: USDA zone 7b, about 231 days between hard freezes, across 274 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~231
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 274 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 The College of New Jersey's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against The College of New Jersey's 231-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in The College of New Jersey
Each reading below is measured for The College of New Jersey itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredThe College of New Jersey runs about 231 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
MeasuredThe College of New Jersey 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 The College of New Jersey is in
The College of New Jersey sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at The College of New Jersey's own centroid rather than borrowed from Mercer County.
What Grows in The College of New Jersey
Every plant below cleared The College of New Jersey's own zone 7b and its 231-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in The College of New Jersey?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 28; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 28 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 14 — 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 The College of New Jersey
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from The College of New Jersey, first recorded 2018. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near The College of New Jersey
Closest first, within ~10 miles of The College of New Jersey. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEYBrownfields · 1700 ft
- THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1700 ft
- 210604-- MW74Nitrate · 1900 ft
- 210779-- MW 74RNitrate · 2200 ft
- 210191-- PW 1Nitrate · 2600 ft
- EWING-LAWRENCE SEWER AUTHORITYUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- 210192-- PW 1Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- EWING SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- SUNOCO 0010-3242Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- LUKOIL #57328Underground Storage Tanks · 0.6 mi
- KENNY'S CLEANERSSuperfund · 0.7 mi
- 210190-- PW 1Nitrate · 0.8 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from The College of New Jersey'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 The College of New Jersey.
Total Sites
2,363
within ~10 miles of The College of New Jersey
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
32 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of The College of New Jersey
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of The College of New Jersey
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around The College of New Jersey, Superfund runs higher than the national average — 32 sites within ~10 miles of The College of New Jersey. Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in The College of New Jersey
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 College of New Jersey average
Your land is one point inside The College of New Jersey
Everything above resolves to The College of New Jersey as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 274 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 The College of New Jersey Average
The College of New Jersey Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across The College of New Jersey
- ●One soil character for all of The College of New Jersey
- ●Frost dates read at The College of New Jersey's scale: Mar 28 to Nov 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not The College of New Jersey's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in The College of New Jersey
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in The College of New Jersey, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that College of New Jersey averages can't show:
We read public map data around The College of New Jersey — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the College of New Jersey average
How we know this about The College of New Jersey
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 The College of New Jersey’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 The College of New Jersey
When does frost risk typically end in The College of New Jersey?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in The College of New Jersey typically lands around Mar 28, 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 18.
When is the first frost in The College of New Jersey?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in The College of New Jersey typically arrives around Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 31, so the watching starts about Oct 15 — about 231 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in The College of New Jersey?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, The College of New Jersey sees about 231 frost-free days — roughly Mar 28 through Nov 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 18 to Oct 31, about 196 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in The College of New Jersey?
The federal record around The College of New Jersey runs heavier than most — 2,363 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,229), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.3 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 The College of New Jersey?
From about Oct 15 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 14 (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 14. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at The College of New Jersey's scale — its 7b band and its 231-day season. Your yard writes its own version of The College of New Jersey'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 The College of New Jersey’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at The College of New Jersey's own scale — its own ~231-day season between 28°F freezes, the 274 acres it covers and 2,363 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- The College of New Jersey's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- The College of New Jersey's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 28 and Nov 14 and the ~231-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,363 documented contamination sites on the federal record near The College of New Jersey, the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- The College of New Jersey's boundary and the 274 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~231-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at The College of New Jersey's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of The College of New Jerseylydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so The College of New Jersey's 274 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Mercer County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Mercer 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 Mercer County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among The College of New Jersey's 274 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of The College of New Jersey you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 274 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 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 The College of New Jersey-wide figureread your own land →
More in New Jersey
Wider growing context
What grows across New JerseyThe College of New Jersey sits outside our named growing regions, so New Jersey as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides