Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Even in Bird-in-Hand, 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 Bird-in-Hand 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 Bird-in-Hand — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Bird-in-Hand — the short answer
Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7a, about 225 days between hard freezes, across 356 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Mar 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 10
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~225
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 356 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 Bird-in-Hand's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Bird-in-Hand's 225-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Bird-in-Hand
Each reading below is measured for Bird-in-Hand itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBird-in-Hand runs about 225 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
MeasuredBird-in-Hand 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 Bird-in-Hand is in
Bird-in-Hand sits in the Northern Piedmont — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Bird-in-Hand's own centroid rather than borrowed from Lancaster County.
What Grows in Bird-in-Hand
Every plant below cleared Bird-in-Hand's own zone 7a and its 225-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Bird-in-Hand?
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 2; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Mar 30 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 10 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Bird-in-Hand
Spotted lanternfly documented 3 miles from Bird-in-Hand, first recorded 2017. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Bird-in-Hand
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Bird-in-Hand. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- VALLORBS JEWEL COBrownfields · 850 ft
- VALLORBS JEWEL COToxics Release Inventory · 850 ft
- VALLORBS JEWEL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- FISHERS CONSTUnderground Storage Tanks · 900 ft
- EL MASONRYUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- AMES REESEBrownfields · 1400 ft
- AMES REESEToxics Release Inventory · 1400 ft
- AMES REESEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1400 ft
- LN 1988Nitrate · 1500 ft
- LN 1867Nitrate · 1600 ft
- RONALD D KISERUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- CO NOLT & SONUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Bird-in-Hand'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 Bird-in-Hand.
Total Sites
2,222
within ~10 miles of Bird-in-Hand
Risk Level
High
Highest-severity
99 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Bird-in-Hand
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Bird-in-Hand
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Bird-in-Hand, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Bird-in-Hand — CAFO (51 sites) and Nitrate (680 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 Bird-in-Hand
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 Bird-in-Hand average
Your land is one point inside Bird-in-Hand
Everything above resolves to Bird-in-Hand as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 356 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 Bird-in-Hand Average
Bird-in-Hand Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Bird-in-Hand
- ●One soil character for all of Bird-in-Hand
- ●Frost dates read at Bird-in-Hand's scale: Mar 30 to Nov 10
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Bird-in-Hand's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Bird-in-Hand
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Bird-in-Hand averages can't show:
We read public map data around Bird-in-Hand — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Bird-in-Hand average
How we know this about Bird-in-Hand
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 Bird-in-Hand’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 Bird-in-Hand
When does frost risk typically end in Bird-in-Hand?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Bird-in-Hand typically lands around Mar 30, 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 20.
When is the first frost in Bird-in-Hand?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Bird-in-Hand typically arrives around Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 27, so the watching starts about Oct 11 — about 225 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Bird-in-Hand?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Bird-in-Hand sees about 225 frost-free days — roughly Mar 30 through Nov 10, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 20 to Oct 27, about 190 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Bird-in-Hand?
The federal record around Bird-in-Hand runs heavier than most — 2,222 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (970), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.2 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 Bird-in-Hand?
From about Oct 11 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 10 (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 10. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Bird-in-Hand's scale — its 7a band and its 225-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Bird-in-Hand'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 Bird-in-Hand’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Bird-in-Hand's own scale — its own ~225-day season between 28°F freezes, the 356 acres it covers and 2,222 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Bird-in-Hand's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Bird-in-Hand's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Mar 30 and Nov 10 and the ~225-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 2,222 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Bird-in-Hand, the closest Brownfields record about 0.2 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Bird-in-Hand's boundary and the 356 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~225-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Bird-in-Hand's own centroid, the Northern PiedmontUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Bird-in-Handlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Bird-in-Hand's 356 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Lancaster County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Lancaster 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 Lancaster County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Bird-in-Hand's 356 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Bird-in-Hand you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 356 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 Bird-in-Hand-wide figureread your own land →