Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Expect cabbage, hazelnut, california poppy, and collard greens to be strong candidates here; the deciding factors on any one parcel stay local — soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Carlisle Barracks, 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 Carlisle Barracks 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 Carlisle Barracks — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Carlisle Barracks — the short answer
Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania: USDA zone 7a, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 216 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 7a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 1
- 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
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 216 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 Carlisle Barracks's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Carlisle Barracks's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Carlisle Barracks
Each reading below is measured for Carlisle Barracks itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredCarlisle Barracks runs about 218 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
MeasuredCarlisle Barracks 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 Carlisle Barracks is in
Carlisle Barracks sits in the Ridge and Valley — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Carlisle Barracks's own centroid rather than borrowed from Cumberland County.
What Grows in Carlisle Barracks
Every plant below cleared Carlisle Barracks's own zone 7a and its 218-day season. Each card opens that plant's Pennsylvania profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Carlisle Barracks?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 4; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 1 (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 Carlisle Barracks
Spotted lanternfly documented 2 miles from Carlisle Barracks, first recorded 2018. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Carlisle Barracks
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Carlisle Barracks. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- CARLISLE PROPANEBrownfields · 1500 ft
- SUBURBAN PROPANE CARLISLEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- CARLISLE ARMY WAR COLBrownfields · 1600 ft
- CARLISLE ARMY WAR COLSuperfund · 1600 ft
- VALPEY-FISHER CORPBrownfields · 2300 ft
- S & S AUTOUnderground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- CUMBERLAND COUNTY RECYCLING CENTERBrownfields · 2400 ft
- 7 ELEVEN 11395Underground Storage Tanks · 2400 ft
- CARLISLE BARRACKSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- SENTINELUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.5 mi
- CUMBERLAND PULBISHERS INCBrownfields · 0.5 mi
- HESS STA 38252Brownfields · 0.5 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Carlisle Barracks'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 Carlisle Barracks.
Total Sites
808
within ~10 miles of Carlisle Barracks
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
2 Superfund sites
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Carlisle Barracks
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Carlisle Barracks
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Carlisle Barracks, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 222 sites within ~10 miles of Carlisle Barracks. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Carlisle Barracks
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 Carlisle Barracks average
Your land is one point inside Carlisle Barracks
Everything above resolves to Carlisle Barracks as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 216 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 Carlisle Barracks Average
Carlisle Barracks Average
- ●USDA Zones 7a, averaged across Carlisle Barracks
- ●One soil character for all of Carlisle Barracks
- ●Frost dates read at Carlisle Barracks's scale: Apr 1 to Nov 5
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Carlisle Barracks's 7a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Carlisle Barracks
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Carlisle Barracks averages can't show:
We read public map data around Carlisle Barracks — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Carlisle Barracks average
How we know this about Carlisle Barracks
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 Carlisle Barracks’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 Carlisle Barracks
When does frost risk typically end in Carlisle Barracks?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Carlisle Barracks typically lands around Apr 1, 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 22.
When is the first frost in Carlisle Barracks?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Carlisle Barracks 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 218 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Carlisle Barracks?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Carlisle Barracks sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Apr 1 through Nov 5, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 22 to Oct 22, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Carlisle Barracks?
The federal record around Carlisle Barracks is a meaningful one — 808 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (372), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Carlisle Barracks?
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 Carlisle Barracks's scale — its 7a band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Carlisle Barracks'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 Carlisle Barracks’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Carlisle Barracks's own scale — its own ~218-day season between 28°F freezes, the 216 acres it covers and 808 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Carlisle Barracks's own USDA hardiness band, zones 7aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Carlisle Barracks's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 1 and Nov 5 and the ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 808 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Carlisle Barracks, the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Carlisle Barracks's boundary and the 216 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 7a and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Carlisle Barracks's own centroid, the Ridge and ValleyUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Carlisle Barrackslydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Carlisle Barracks's 216 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Cumberland County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Cumberland 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 Cumberland County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Carlisle Barracks's 216 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Carlisle Barracks you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 216 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 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 Carlisle Barracks-wide figureread your own land →