Beaver Meadows, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
These conditions suit cabbage, blackberry, california poppy, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Beaver Meadows, 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 Beaver Meadows 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 Beaver Meadows — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Beaver Meadows — the short answer
Beaver Meadows, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 6b, about 191 days between hard freezes, across 165 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~191
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 165 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 Beaver Meadows's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Beaver Meadows's 191-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Beaver Meadows
Each reading below is measured for Beaver Meadows itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBeaver Meadows runs about 191 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
MeasuredBeaver Meadows 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 Beaver Meadows is in
Beaver Meadows sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Beaver Meadows's own centroid rather than borrowed from Carbon County.
What Grows in Beaver Meadows
Every plant below cleared Beaver Meadows's own zone 6b and its 191-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Beaver Meadows?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 24 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. The tail of the season still works: sixty-day crops into late summer, quick greens after, garlic last of all.
Documented around Beaver Meadows
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Beaver Meadows, first recorded 2019. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Beaver Meadows
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Beaver Meadows. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- LUZERNE & CARBON CO MOTOR TRANSIT CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- PAUL'S AUTO CENTERBrownfields · 750 ft
- JORDANS AUTO SVCUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- BEAVER MEADOWS PUMP STAUnderground Storage Tanks · 950 ft
- GABOS PROPUnderground Storage Tanks · 1000 ft
- J & N BEAVER MEADOWS LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- LEHIGH GAS & OIL BULK PLTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- GEORGE SHEERS PROPUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- BRADFORD CLOCKSBrownfields · 2.2 mi
- MAZAIKA COAL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.3 mi
- CB 337Nitrate · 2.3 mi
- LARRYS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.4 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Beaver Meadows'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 Beaver Meadows.
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Beaver Meadows
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Beaver Meadows
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Beaver Meadows, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Beaver Meadows — Toxics Release Inventory (49 sites) and Superfund (9 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check your specific parcel in Beaver Meadows
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 Beaver Meadows average
Your land is one point inside Beaver Meadows
Everything above resolves to Beaver Meadows as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 165 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 Beaver Meadows Average
Beaver Meadows Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Beaver Meadows
- ●One soil character for all of Beaver Meadows
- ●Frost dates read at Beaver Meadows's scale: Apr 16 to Oct 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Beaver Meadows's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Beaver Meadows
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Beaver Meadows, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Beaver Meadows averages can't show:
We read public map data around Beaver Meadows — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Beaver Meadows average
How we know this about Beaver Meadows
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 Beaver Meadows’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 Beaver Meadows
When does frost risk typically end in Beaver Meadows?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Beaver Meadows typically lands around Apr 16, 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 7.
When is the first frost in Beaver Meadows?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Beaver Meadows typically arrives around Oct 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 10, so the watching starts about Sep 24 — about 191 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Beaver Meadows?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Beaver Meadows sees about 191 frost-free days — roughly Apr 16 through Oct 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 7 to Oct 10, about 156 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Beaver Meadows?
The federal record around Beaver Meadows runs heavier than most — 541 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (305), 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 Beaver Meadows?
From about Sep 24 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 24 (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 24. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Beaver Meadows's scale — its 6b band and its 191-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Beaver Meadows'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 Beaver Meadows’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Beaver Meadows's own scale — its own ~191-day season between 28°F freezes, the 165 acres it covers and 541 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Beaver Meadows's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Beaver Meadows's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 16 and Oct 24 and the ~191-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 541 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Beaver Meadows, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Beaver Meadows's boundary and the 165 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~191-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Beaver Meadows's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Beaver Meadowslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Beaver Meadows's 165 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Carbon County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Carbon 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 Carbon County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Beaver Meadows's 165 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Beaver Meadows you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 165 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 Beaver Meadows-wide figureread your own land →
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