Broad Top City, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Broad Top City, 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 Broad Top City 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 Broad Top City — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Broad Top City — the short answer
Broad Top City, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 6b, about 211 days between hard freezes, across 433 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 8
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 5
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~211
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 433 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 Broad Top City's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Broad Top City's 211-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Broad Top City
Each reading below is measured for Broad Top City itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredBroad Top City 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
MeasuredBroad Top City 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 Broad Top City is in
Broad Top City sits in the Central Appalachians — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Broad Top City's own centroid, and it is not what its county reads: Huntingdon County is mostly Ridge and Valley. The wider page above you is answering a different question about different ground.
What Grows in Broad Top City
Every plant below cleared Broad Top City's own zone 6b and its 211-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Broad Top City?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 11; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 8 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 5 — 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 Broad Top City
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Broad Top City, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Broad Top City
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Broad Top City. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- OUR PLACEUnderground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- HORTONS GARAGEUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- BROAD TOP QUIK SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 800 ft
- FAMILY DOLLAR STORE NO 10736Brownfields · 1400 ft
- HU 109Nitrate · 0.6 mi
- HU 102Nitrate · 2.0 mi
- COOKS COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- MCDONALDS STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.9 mi
- SGL 121Underground Storage Tanks · 3.2 mi
- HU 147Nitrate · 3.2 mi
- NEWBURG COUNTRY STOREUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.8 mi
- WARNER CAFOCAFO · 4.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Broad Top City'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 Broad Top City.
Total Sites
106
within ~10 miles of Broad Top City
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Broad Top City
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Broad Top City
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Broad Top City, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Broad Top City — CAFO (3 sites) and Nitrate (42 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about 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 Broad Top City
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 Broad Top City average
Your land is one point inside Broad Top City
Everything above resolves to Broad Top City as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 433 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 Broad Top City Average
Broad Top City Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Broad Top City
- ●One soil character for all of Broad Top City
- ●Frost dates read at Broad Top City's scale: Apr 8 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Broad Top City's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Broad Top City
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Broad Top City, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Broad Top City averages can't show:
We read public map data around Broad Top City — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Broad Top City average
How we know this about Broad Top City
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 Broad Top City’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 Broad Top City
When does frost risk typically end in Broad Top City?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Broad Top City typically lands around Apr 8, 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 29.
When is the first frost in Broad Top City?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Broad Top City typically arrives around Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 22, so the watching starts about Oct 6 — about 211 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Broad Top City?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Broad Top City sees about 211 frost-free days — roughly Apr 8 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 29 to Oct 22, about 176 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Broad Top City?
The federal record around Broad Top City shows 106 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (49), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile 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 Broad Top City?
From about Oct 6 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 5 (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 5. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Broad Top City's scale — its 6b band and its 211-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Broad Top City'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 Broad Top City’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Broad Top City's own scale — its own ~211-day season between 28°F freezes, the 433 acres it covers and 106 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Broad Top City's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Broad Top City's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 8 and Nov 5 and the ~211-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 106 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Broad Top City, the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Broad Top City's boundary and the 433 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~211-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Broad Top City sits in the Central Appalachians — not the ecoregion its county mostly readsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Broad Top Citylydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Broad Top City's 433 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Huntingdon County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Huntingdon 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 Huntingdon County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Broad Top City's 433 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Broad Top City you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 433 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 Broad Top City-wide figureread your own land →
More in Pennsylvania
Growing region
Nearby growing guides