Victory Gardens, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Even in Victory Gardens, 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 Victory Gardens 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 Victory Gardens — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Victory Gardens — the short answer
Victory Gardens, New Jersey: USDA zone 6b, about 198 days between hard freezes, across 93 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 11
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 26
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~198
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 93 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 6b is Victory Gardens's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Victory Gardens's 198-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Victory Gardens
Each reading below is measured for Victory Gardens itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredVictory Gardens runs about 198 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredVictory Gardens sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Victory Gardens is in
Victory Gardens sits in the Northeastern Highlands — EPA Level III, inside the wider Northern Forests. That is read at Victory Gardens's own centroid rather than borrowed from Morris County.
What Grows in Victory Gardens
Every plant below cleared Victory Gardens's own zone 6b and its 198-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Victory Gardens?
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 14; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 11 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 26 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Even past midsummer there is room for a true fall garden here, and garlic planted near the close carries the momentum into next year.
Documented around Victory Gardens
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Victory Gardens, first recorded 2020. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Victory Gardens
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Victory Gardens. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- DOVER CHRYSLER PLYMOUTHUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- NJ FUEL LLC DBA DOVER SHELLUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- KMART 4397Underground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- PAL PIKE ASOCIATESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- PEGGY KARR GLASS INCToxics Release Inventory · 1700 ft
- CURLEY STONE CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- NEW JERSEY BELL TELEPHONE COMPANUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- JAN PACKAGING INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 2200 ft
- JAN PACKAGING INCBrownfields · 2300 ft
- E A PORTER SITEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- SALEM STREET SERVICE CENTER - RPC #04Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- R.P.C INC PLANTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Victory Gardens'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 Victory Gardens.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Victory Gardens
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Victory Gardens
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Victory Gardens, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Victory Gardens — Superfund (47 sites) and PFAS (25 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
PFAS: PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are called "forever chemicals" because they do not biodegrade.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Test irrigation water source — this is the primary pathway for PFAS to reach garden crops.
Check your specific parcel in Victory Gardens
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 Victory Gardens average
Your land is one point inside Victory Gardens
Everything above resolves to Victory Gardens as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 93 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 Victory Gardens Average
Victory Gardens Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Victory Gardens
- ●One soil character for all of Victory Gardens
- ●Frost dates read at Victory Gardens's scale: Apr 11 to Oct 26
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Victory Gardens's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Victory Gardens
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Victory Gardens, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Victory Gardens averages can't show:
We read public map data around Victory Gardens — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Victory Gardens average
How we know this about Victory Gardens
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 Victory Gardens’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 Victory Gardens
When does frost risk typically end in Victory Gardens?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Victory Gardens typically lands around Apr 11, 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 2.
When is the first frost in Victory Gardens?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Victory Gardens typically arrives around Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 12, so the watching starts about Sep 26 — about 198 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Victory Gardens?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Victory Gardens sees about 198 frost-free days — roughly Apr 11 through Oct 26, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 2 to Oct 12, about 163 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Victory Gardens?
The federal record around Victory Gardens runs heavier than most — 2,291 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (1,081), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Victory Gardens?
From about Sep 26 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 Oct 26 (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 Oct 26. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Victory Gardens's scale — its 6b band and its 198-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Victory Gardens'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 Victory Gardens’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Victory Gardens's own scale — its own ~198-day season between 28°F freezes, the 93 acres it covers and 2,291 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Victory Gardens's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Victory Gardens's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 11 and Oct 26 and the ~198-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,291 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Victory Gardens, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Victory Gardens's boundary and the 93 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~198-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Victory Gardens's own centroid, the Northeastern HighlandsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Victory Gardenslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Victory Gardens's 93 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Morris County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Morris 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 Morris County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Victory Gardens's 93 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Victory Gardens you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 93 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks 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 Victory Gardens-wide figureread your own land →