Beaver Springs, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Growers here do well with cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with the usual caveat that any single yard's soil, sun, and drainage cast the deciding vote.
Even in Beaver Springs, 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 Springs 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 Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Beaver Springs — the short answer
Beaver Springs, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 6b, about 202 days between hard freezes, across 867 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 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~202
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 867 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 Springs's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Beaver Springs's 202-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Beaver Springs
Each reading below is measured for Beaver Springs itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBeaver Springs runs about 202 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
MeasuredBeaver Springs 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 Springs is in
Beaver Springs sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Beaver Springs's own centroid rather than borrowed from Snyder County.
What Grows in Beaver Springs
Every plant below cleared Beaver Springs's own zone 6b and its 202-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Beaver Springs?
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 30 — 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 Beaver Springs
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Beaver Springs, first recorded 2022. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Beaver Springs
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Beaver Springs. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CONESTOGA WOOD SPEC CORP/BEAVER SPRINGS PLTBrownfields · 1300 ft
- SPRING TWP MAINT BLDGUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- WEST SNYDER HIGH SCHUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- KLINE MOTORS INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1800 ft
- BEAVER SPRINGS SHOE COToxics Release Inventory · 2600 ft
- MATTERNS HATCHERY INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- BEAVERTON SOWCAFO · 1.7 mi
- BEAVERTON SOW CAFO OPERATIONCAFO · 1.7 mi
- BDS FARMS CAFOCAFO · 1.9 mi
- BOONIE & SON FUELSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.0 mi
- H & S MASONRYToxics Release Inventory · 2.0 mi
- BEAVER SPRINGS AUTOMOTIVE SHOPBrownfields · 2.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Beaver Springs'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 Springs.
Total Sites
173
within ~10 miles of Beaver Springs
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
10 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Beaver Springs
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Beaver Springs
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Beaver Springs, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Beaver Springs — CAFO (26 sites) and Nitrate (46 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Beaver Springs
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 Springs average
Your land is one point inside Beaver Springs
Everything above resolves to Beaver Springs as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 867 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 Springs Average
Beaver Springs Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Beaver Springs
- ●One soil character for all of Beaver Springs
- ●Frost dates read at Beaver Springs's scale: Apr 11 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Beaver Springs's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Beaver Springs
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Beaver Springs, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Beaver Springs averages can't show:
We read public map data around Beaver Springs — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Beaver Springs average
How we know this about Beaver Springs
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 Springs’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 Springs
When does frost risk typically end in Beaver Springs?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Beaver Springs 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 Beaver Springs?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Beaver Springs typically arrives around Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 16, so the watching starts about Sep 30 — about 202 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Beaver Springs?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Beaver Springs sees about 202 frost-free days — roughly Apr 11 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 2 to Oct 16, about 167 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Beaver Springs?
The federal record around Beaver Springs shows 173 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (78), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Beaver Springs?
From about Sep 30 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 30 (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 30. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Beaver Springs's scale — its 6b band and its 202-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Beaver Springs'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 Springs’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Beaver Springs's own scale — its own ~202-day season between 28°F freezes, the 867 acres it covers and 173 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Beaver Springs's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Beaver Springs's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 11 and Oct 30 and the ~202-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 173 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Beaver Springs, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Beaver Springs's boundary and the 867 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~202-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Beaver Springs's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Beaver Springslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Beaver Springs's 867 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Snyder County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Snyder 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 Snyder County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Beaver Springs's 867 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Beaver Springs you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 867 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Springs-wide figureread your own land →
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