Bally, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Bally, 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 Bally 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 Bally — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Bally — the short answer
Bally, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7a, about 211 days between hard freezes, across 328 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~211
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 328 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 Bally's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bally's 211-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bally
Each reading below is measured for Bally itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBally runs about 211 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
MeasuredBally 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 Bally is in
Bally sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bally's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Berks County is mostly Ridge and Valley. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Bally
Every plant below cleared Bally's own zone 7a and its 211-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bally?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 8; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 5 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 2 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Bally
Spotted lanternfly documented 4 miles from Bally, first recorded 2015. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Bally
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bally. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- NESTORS AUTO SALESUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- KEHS BROSUnderground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- GREATER AMER KNITTING MILLSUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- BALLY BLOCK COUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- BALLY BLOCK CO/BALLYBrownfields · 950 ft
- BALLY RIBBON MILLS/BALLYToxics Release Inventory · 950 ft
- BALLY RIBBON MILLSUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- QUIGLEY, JAMES S INCBrownfields · 1000 ft
- JAMES S QUIQLEY INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- FRONHEISER CONSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- BALLY GROUND WATER CONTAMINATIONSuperfund · 1700 ft
- BALLY ENGINEERED STRUCTURESUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bally'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 Bally.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bally
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bally
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bally, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Bally — Superfund (12 sites) and PFAS (7 sites). 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.
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 Bally
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 Bally average
Your land is one point inside Bally
Everything above resolves to Bally as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 328 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 Bally Average
Bally Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Bally
- ●One soil character for all of Bally
- ●Frost dates read at Bally's scale: Apr 5 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bally's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bally
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bally, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bally averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bally — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bally average
How we know this about Bally
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 Bally’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 Bally
When does frost risk typically end in Bally?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bally typically lands around Apr 5, 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 26.
When is the first frost in Bally?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bally typically arrives around Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 19, so the watching starts about Oct 3 — about 211 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bally?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bally sees about 211 frost-free days — roughly Apr 5 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 26 to Oct 19, about 176 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bally?
The federal record around Bally runs heavier than most — 747 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (318), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Bally?
From about Oct 3 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 2 (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 2. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bally's scale — its 7a band and its 211-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bally'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 Bally’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Bally's own scale — its own ~211-day season between 28°F freezes, the 328 acres it covers and 747 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bally's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bally's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 5 and Nov 2 and the ~211-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 747 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bally, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bally's boundary and the 328 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~211-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Bally sits in the Northern Piedmont — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Ballylydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Bally's 328 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Berks County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Berks County
- The growing challenges every Pennsylvania grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Pennsylvania
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Berks County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bally's 328 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bally you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 328 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 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 Bally-wide figureread your own land →
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