West Park, New Jersey, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Growers here do well with cabbage, prickly pear, california poppy, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in West Park, 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 West Park 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 West Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
West Park — the short answer
West Park, New Jersey: USDA zone 7b, about 234 days between hard freezes, across 829 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 27
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~234
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 829 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 West Park's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against West Park's 234-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in West Park
Each reading below is measured for West Park itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredWest Park runs about 234 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
MeasuredWest Park 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 West Park is in
West Park sits in the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at West Park's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cumberland County.
What Grows in West Park
Every plant below cleared West Park's own zone 7b and its 234-day season. Each card opens that plant's New Jersey profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in West Park?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Feb 27; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 27 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 16 — 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 West Park
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from West Park, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near West Park
Closest first, within ~10 miles of West Park. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HOPEWELL SUNOCOUnderground Storage Tanks · 300 ft
- HOPEWELL VALEROUnderground Storage Tanks · 450 ft
- 590 SHILOH PIKEUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- BRIDGETON CITY WATER DEPTPFAS · 1100 ft
- JOHN L & JEANETTE S MULFORDUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- ROBERT HAMPTON INC (FORMER)Underground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- NEW JERSEY DOT - RTE 49 & BARRETTS RUN RDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- 391 W BROAD STUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- OAKLAND FARMS AIRPORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- MARY ELMER LAKE FIRE CO BLDGUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- 111015-- Suscp17 DomNitrate · 1.1 mi
- 110013-- 11 - Emergency WellNitrate · 1.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from West Park'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 West Park.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of West Park
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of West Park
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around West Park, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 282 sites within ~10 miles of West Park. 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.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in West Park
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 West Park average
Your land is one point inside West Park
Everything above resolves to West Park as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 829 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 West Park Average
West Park Average
- ●USDA Zones 7b, averaged across West Park
- ●One soil character for all of West Park
- ●Frost dates read at West Park's scale: Mar 27 to Nov 16
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not West Park's 7b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in West Park
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in West Park, New Jersey — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that West Park averages can't show:
We read public map data around West Park — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the West Park average
How we know this about West Park
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 West Park’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 West Park
When does frost risk typically end in West Park?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in West Park typically lands around Mar 27, 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 17.
When is the first frost in West Park?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in West Park typically arrives around Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Nov 2, so the watching starts about Oct 17 — about 234 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in West Park?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, West Park sees about 234 frost-free days — roughly Mar 27 through Nov 16, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 17 to Nov 2, about 199 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in West Park?
The federal record around West Park is a meaningful one — 558 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (282), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 West Park?
From about Oct 17 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 16 (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 16. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at West Park's scale — its 7b band and its 234-day season. Your yard writes its own version of West Park'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 West Park’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at West Park's own scale — its own ~234-day season between 28°F freezes, the 829 acres it covers and 558 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- West Park's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7bUSDA PHZM 2023
- West Park's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 27 and Nov 16 and the ~234-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 558 documented contamination sites on the federal record near West Park, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- West Park's boundary and the 829 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7b and a ~234-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at West Park's own centroid, the Atlantic Coastal Pine BarrensUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of West Parklydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so West Park's 829 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cumberland County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cumberland 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 Cumberland County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among West Park's 829 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of West Park you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 829 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 West Park-wide figureread your own land →